Knights of the Old Republic: Depth of Soul
by Evaron
Summary: The trials of many Jedi before Lord Revan's time and the Mandalorian Wars were not as flawless as historians would heartily recall. PreKotOR in the hopes of interlocking known history and Revan's beginning with a story of my own.
1. Chapter 1

_**Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic**_

_**Depth of One Soul**_

_**Chapter One: Hope of a Jedi**_

Carefully, Varon opened the hatch of the cargo container, hoping the throbbing hum of its automated lift sequence would go unnoticed by the guards stationed outside. The mechanics had finally left their work in the equipment room momentarily and retired to the living quarters, leaving the place dully lit and dead silent. Varon could not remember how many hours he had just spent, cramped in that tiny metal storage case, patiently avoiding any attention. Luckily, his compartment had not been one of the first that the mechanics had opened. If his senses did not deceive him, he was completely alone, although he would not let himself rush too quickly to that conclusion. Checking his senses once more, Varon delved into his inner conscience, surveying the outside with a vague clarity that his eyes could not physically hope to match. Again, they assured him: the room was clear. Sighing, and with considerable effort, after his muscles had not been able to move for hours, he rose and looked around.

The room was empty; the metal locking doors were closed, likely to protect against thieves. Varon smiled, looked at the mechanics' workbench, and spotted them almost immediately – encased in stainless Corath cases, two small, fluorescent crystals, one red, the other green, side by side, removed from the mess of instruments about the disorganized workbench. Varon scanned the place again, spotting no hidden cameras or meticulously-constructed security systems to ward this supply room from harm. Fortunately, no one was expecting visitors. He closed his eyes, outstretched his mind, and again sensed no danger, so he carefully pocketed both crystals within a small pouch under his robes. Turning to the metal boxes scattered about the bench, he spotted an open case. Grenades. Sonic grenades in this one, and dozens of them; each box likely carried a different type than the one beside it. At a moment's pause, he took two for good measure, then looked around for another hiding place.

And a spanner.

Two guards must have been posted right outside the room, to have heard the noise and responded so quickly. Though they barely noticed the silver tool immediately under the entranceway, both men walked inside, short-range blasters cooly clasped between ungloved hands as the equipment room doors slid back into their neighbouring walls. As they reached the workbench, they paused and looked around, slowly and carefully at opposite ends of the room. Varon, standing on the ridges of his toes behind them, pensively raised one hand, his deep, brooding eyes far removed from the light of the room. Both guards instinctively reached for their temples, then dropped to the floor, unconscious. They'll be out for a while, he measured, dragging both into the unlit corner beside the workbench he had just appeared from. Satisfied, he crept out the open door, locking it with the outside hallway console in case the two guards found sleep too time-consuming for his plans.

The hallway was empty from what Varon could see, its marble-white walls reflecting the neon sheen of halogen lights from the ceiling. Peeking round the intersection a few paces ahead, he spotted two guards at another door. He looked out the portside window opposite the equipment room contemplatively; the stars were an unwelcome sight for a lone man, one who knew there was little room in a delicate gravity-generating ship for error, with only a slight margin for escape. However, there was comfort too in the calm silence and serene complexion of an ever-changing galaxy, almost surreally surrounding him. Varon's thoughts flowed clearer in this scenic abyss before him, allowing him a respite rarely garnered beneath the common struggles of metropolis life that he was so often an involuntary part of.

It did not take him long to find the ship's destination from the nearby console: the planet of Corun, a spice trading port, was just visible off the starboard bow. Its short-distance proximity with the last port he had entered from, Baranor, made hyperdrive an unneeded commodity, which explained his curiosity at why they had been traveling very slowly, almost too smoothly, through the atmosphere-less space. 'Twould almost seem like a pleasure cruise for the captain, Varon mused. A sly smile broke his normally calm, grim features. Nevertheless, he knew he was stalling. Nodding to the starscape with a calm reverence, he darted through the corridor and headed for the cargo hold as discreetly as he could manage in his heavy robes.

For an instant, by the bridge doorway, one guard blinked his eyes curiously. A shadow passed through the hallway only thirty feet in front of him. His hold of his blaster tightened; and one step pulled the indecisive man forward.

"Hey," the other guard blurted noncommitally, the movement somewhat fixing his gaze forward instead of down at the floor where it had been.

The former guard shook his head, stepping back, and twitched. He had forgotten. "I... just stretching," he said at length, trying to conceal an aura of embarrassment. "Boring as Mynox broods just standing here."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Like anything's going to happen when we're headed for an abandoned spice mine, hey! Why, I remember the time..."

The admiral of the Norfast stood patiently on the command deck, hands curtly intertwined behind his back. The Twi'lek was dressed in grey khakis and light bleach meshing, somewhat complimenting his moist grey features. His yellow eyes regarded the approaching surface of Corun, little more than a grey asteroid with an artificial ozone layer and millions of metropolises, most, moreover, unimportant slums too ignorant of Republic regulations to reform given any length of time.

The stars were silent, almost too silent for his liking. He missed the low rumbling of the hyperdrive and the exhilaration of watching every passing star - and yet it was not more than a fortnight since last this ship rode the light waves, seen his destiny unfold before him, from a tiny speck in a distant system to a bustling planet of two trillion. Resignedly, he examined the outside world with patient anticipation. It would not be long before they arrived and docked with the mining port. 2.54 standard hours, the navicomputer estimated.

Startled, and apparently bearing ill news as shown by his composure, one of the ship's crewmen came up to his side.

Almost without thought, the admiral spun round, narrowing his gaze on the man with zealous, yet slightly disinterested, scrutiny. "Well, what is it? Speak."

"Sir, Lord Zaithla'in has ordered that we head to sub-space, code 5-4-619 before continuing our present course. He feels it would be best to inspect the cargo himself."

The numb feeling in most of the captain's body both relaxed and intensified in almost the same instant. Perhaps this was a promotion... perhaps suspected heresy. He turned to the man, and cleared his throat. Given the implications, he knew he had no choice in the matter. "Very well. Plot the course, Karhydron."

"Yes, captain," the man replied, slowly walking off towards the navicomputer.

The captain was about to turn around, back towards the starscape before him, but noticed an unusual limp in the officer's pace. Nervous about something, he thought, before calling, "Sir." Karhydron turned back to face him. "Is there anything you wanted to tell me?"

Karhydron swayed from side to side, contemplating, before he turned and stood at attention. "Sir... – it's... just a ship's rumour right now, but some of the crew are unsure of Varn and Gharik's whereabouts. They say the two have been missing since last hour's shift and have not been seen again – or registered on any of the telecams."

"Send five of your men and search the vicinity," he ordered. "Don't tell me they've been gambling again in my mess hall…" He sighed. Paid well or not, some mercenaries he hired simply could not be trusted. "Regardless, make sure they're found before we reach commercial air space." He was about to turn and dismiss the man a second time, before adding, "Wait. Where and when were their shifts?"

"Maintenance area, captain. I'll see that it gets checked first."

"Very well, Karhydron. There will be more safety in a wyrm's stomach than at my side if that load has been tampered with, and I do not care who's head will take the blame. Is that clear?"

"Yes, captain," Karhydron answered dutifully before leveling his blaster, turning up its particle beam intensity, then heading away, somewhat flustered.

The captain nodded to the other officers, who instinctively broke their stare, lowering their eyes to the ship's network controls under their fingertips. Two missing men on a ship of fifty officers, under the watch of an approaching Sith Lord, was not an enviable situation.

In an instant the Mantite doors to the cargo hold slid open with a sharp hiss. Varon could hear steel-booted footsteps clanking about from under his perch in the airduct. They seemed cautious, systematically searching for something. The only other person in the hold was a Rodian guard who soon entered the scene acting as if all was in order. The patrol had questioned him thoroughly over what felt like long minutes to Varon, but once they saw he had nothing to hide, they exited discreetly. Moments later, the Rodian closed the doors. Varon sighed, then dropped down from his place in the ceiling, taking great precision in his timing between a single moving security camera's rounds from a corner near the doorway. He scuttled out of its way as he landed, behind a stack of containers, before it returned to survey the main facility. The Rodian came to meet him.

"You were not here," he said again, noncommitally placing a chemical dispenser to a corner of its mouth with two fingers.

Varon smiled. "Very good. You may resume your activities... And take that thing out of your mouth," he added, seeing the dumbstruck pleasure it brought the alien.

"I will not consume contraband," he stated monotonously, before he sauntered off to the nearby workbench, continuing his late hours' work on a blaster rifle.

"Good," Varon murmured in passing thought, waiting on the security camera to again pass him by. He jumped back to his place on the ceiling and breathed in deeply, centring his mind to the currents of thought above him on the command deck.

What news the captain had received disturbed him greatly. His right hand had begun to twitch, and his jaws did not respond the way he intended them to. The crew did not have to look long to see he was nervous, and undoubtedly furious.

One of the crewmen behind one array of controls spoke up; "Lord Zaithla'in is requesting video."

"Put her on screen," he mumbled, one hand straightening his collar.

The faint image of a black Twi'lek in a dimly-lit room appeared in the forward window, with round, smooth features, and, peculiarly for a Twi'lek, many more than two tentacles sprouting from the back of her head, resting on her shoulders and behind her back, their poisonous slime glistening in the faint light of the room. A minor agitation seemed to be plaguing her features the moment the screen flashed on, but it quickly disappeared behind a wall of composure. The gold bands on her largest tentacles, coupled with her unnatural red eyes further attracted the captain's undivided attention, as well as stirred his logical fear. Her face was out of his wildest dreams and nightmares, and the more it moved, the more she disturbed the man.

"Captain Q'elmaric?" her lips mouthed; though the captain could not tell whether such a deep, intrepid voice as the one he heard over the comm-link could emanate from such a lightly-built female, hybrid or no.

"My Lord," Q'elmaric replied, almost mistakenly making it sound like a question. "Lord Zaithla'in..."

A shred of satisfaction enveloped Zaithla'in's composure for an instant, though Q'elmaric could not tell whether it was amusement or aggravation. "Yes, Q'elmaric?" Her tone sounded cynical, quickly dampening the captain's resolve.

Q'elmaric had always had the smallest bit of faith that such a voice as hers could not come from anything less than a male, though merely by the way this one looked – her presence, confrontation, elegance – he knew he had been mistaken, assumed too much too readily. If there was one thing he had instinctively thought all humanoid races shared, it was their taste and savour of beauty, male and female alike. Now, he was talking to a member of his own race and could not focus his thoughts on anything save her complexion and vocal range.

"My Lord," he continued haphazardly, "it appears we have run into a situation with the cargo we carry. I assure you it will not be a problem by the time we dock at Corun. My men are carrying out the investigation to the utmost extent."

"My dear Q'elmaric," the Twi'lek said sweetly, "if I thought you had the situation under control this conversation would not be necessary. I've been instructed to foresee this personally, and it is a task I will not fail in, regardless of whether you and your pitiful mercenaries are involved at all."

Captain Q'elmaric swallowed almost audibly. "My lord, I assure you, it is not necessary..."

"No, Q'elmaric. Success is necessary, and I will go to whatever lengths it takes for your... 'cargo' to get in order. But I admit my intervention should not be required by one so... resourceful, as you've proven in the past, captain."

"No, my Lord."

"Very well. Two of my finest will arrive shortly with orders to inspect and eliminate all substances, organic or inorganic, that may be in the way of your mission. I trust you will show them the highest courtesy, Q'elmaric... as you truly have no choice in the matter."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Good. A shuttle is on its way."

Zaithla'in reached below her screen, causing the image to blur then break up completely, though the captain did not avert his gaze until long after it had disappeared. He turned around, staring at faces that blankly returned his gaze.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Prepare a boarding party!" he huffed, storming out of the bridge to his quarters, to arm himself for the worst.

Kay'l Nadarin crossed his legs over the control pad, slouching in the pilot's chair of the Corellian VI as he held on to a transparent datapad filled with sub-space coordinates, routines, and bounties. His right hand reached for the mug of coffee, and brought it to his coarse, unshaven chin before he turned his eyes from the datapad to look at it. He breathed in a sigh of satisfaction, then turned around at the droid behind him.

"See? Now that's good coffee," Kay'l said, holding the mug like a modest man would fresh ale. The droid backed off and replied in a series of quick beeps and whistles, presumedly about how it was not programmed to watch beans boil instead of making much-needed repairs to the ship.

"Hey, do you want to fly this thing, huh? Are _you_ programmed to watch your own back? No! Now, when I need coffee, you make sure it tastes exactly like this, otherwise I'll get lazy, incapacitated and throw you off the ship. Or - something," Kay'l interjected, pointing at A5-T171, before he handed the droid his mug. "And you better not forget this, A5 – make sure that's the first thing in your list of objectives _the moment_ you see me wake up."

A5-T171 begrudged him a low obedient whistle, then rolled away to the main hold in automated disgust. Kay'l couldn't help smugly grinning as it left, then put his hands behind his neck and resumed his reading. His hand habitually reached towards the coffee holder, into thin air, until his whole body started to lean to his right. He lost his balance; his hand flew forward, trying to support himself, but only managed to knock over his empty plate, which broke on the floor. The chair he had been resting on spun, leaving him with nothing but the cold ship's metal plated floor to accommodate the back of his head. Feeling more frustrated than hurt, he looked at the datapad, which had landed beside him. A small, thin crack ran through one side.

Kay'l groaned impulsively, knowing his embarrassment would not go unnoticed for too long. The unmistakable automated rolling sequence of A5-T171 echoed off the walls in the corridor behind him, and Kay'l did not hesitate to yell, "No, no, no, back A5!"

Sighing, he knew there was only one thing to do: get up. The datapad looked like it still worked, at least. Kay'l picked up the plate shards and put them in one of the coffee holders, then dusted himself off. "Alright, alright, A5. You can come in now."

The droid slowly came around the corner, holding the re-filled mug with a thin metal arm.

"It's alright. I'm sorry," Kay'l confessed, then took the mug and returned it to its holder. "It's just a bit hectic right now, no thanks to the fact I can't sleep at night. Thank you." The droid beeped its acknowledgment.

"Alright, alright. Go and fix the portside dormitory, or something."

A5 headed off in what Kay'l could have sworn was a droid's form of excitement. The pilot shook his head, then saw a flashing light on the computer terminal. Message incoming. Kay'l put the datapad on the co-pilot's chair and brought the message onto the screen beside him, taking another sip of the coffee as he readied himself and rechecked the sub-space coordinates. The coffee he almost spat it out in disgust, just as the screen turned on and revealed a regular human Corun officer. Three thin red dashes on the left side of his uniform: a frigate captain.

The man looked as stagnant as a hyperspanner, in no mood for a discussion. "Corellian VI, this is the Valin Harvester. Do you read?"

"Loud and clear, captain," Kay'l replied formally. In the back of his mind, he half-wondered if this man had had any better sleep than he'd been getting.

"Your mission to Corun must be delayed. You are to head to sub-space, code 5-5-193 immediately."

"On what purpose, captain?" Kay'l asked, trying to sound more skeptical than he was surprised.

"The frigate Norfast is under inspection. Your assistance in our search would be greatly appreciated... non-negotiably, of course. We will transmit further orders when needed. Out."

Letting a brief sigh escape his lips, Kay'l spun in his chair back to the controls and buckled in. "Well, at least we won't get too lonely," he mumbled.

A5 whistled behind him.

"What? I didn't say anything. Just get buckled in. Alright?"

The sight Q'elmaric was greeted with as the airlock doors flew open was less than reassuring. Amongst the smoke and hiss of re-pressurization, two robed silhouettes strode forward, their emotionless guile greeting the beleaguered welcome party of seven as coldly as automated droid protocol. Only a half step in front of his cohort, Q'elmaric felt an emptiness in the back of his throat that almost belied terror; for he knew that by now there were no secrets that _could_ stay hidden even if he desired them to. Even an escape pod could not protect him from the collateral damage of unkempt ignorance now. Gauging the two from their look, neither had likely seen the light of day outside their meditation chambers; Q'elmaric did not doubt that what little if any emotion they had experienced would not unravel itself for a good period of time.

Overwrought with pressure, the captain swallowed hard, still unable to suppress that feeling. He knew he must either speak up now or be interrogated moments later, but he could not find the words to greet these crew could see them clearly now: one was veiled in black and red linen, her pallid skin disturbingly inhuman. The only touching on her that expressed any self thought was lush, somewhat uncomplimentary violet lipstick, and Q'elmaric doubted the concoction was meant for anyone but an unwelcome, 'sincere' enemy incapable of restraining itself. The other figure, notably more barbaric in appearance, and half the height, looked more like the former's furball sidekick rather than a Sith Lord's apprentice. Nevertheless, his complexion was as dark if not more brooding in stature than the female's.

Slowly reaching a halt a few feet in front of them, the disciples lowered their gaze and appeared to start meditating. An instant later, both cocked their heads directly at Q'elmaric, causing the captain to flinch and shudder. They held their gaze for a few moments longer before the captain found the courage within himself to speak."Welcome aboard the frigate Norfast. If there is anything I can do for you do n-"His sentence was severed in mid-air. Q'elmaric braced his neck with his hands, feeling the air within his lungs freeze as the female shot her hand up. "Silence!" she whispered, her cold voice glorifying what faint description the Twi'lek had come to understand from past employers as uncompromising hatred; then her eyes darted elsewhere, and the vice dispersed. She looked at her counterpart, who had also noticed something in the dull, motionless corridor. Moments passed, but whether they were minutes or seconds it came to the point where Q'elmaric could not tell, nor wanted to.

"Is... something the matter?" Q'elmaric asked hesitantly, his voice almost breaking at the last syllables between gasps for breath.

Ignoring him, the female turned and croaked some guttural language of squeals and growls, to which the fuzzball beside her replied with its more pronounced, articulate vocabulary. Q'elmaric trembled as if someone had clawed at a chalkboard. Perhaps it was better that he did not know what they were saying. Somehow, the captain still found his thoughts thrown off track by the female's appeal, despite heavily doubting that she would not sooner kill him than speak to him casually. If she understood the meaning of the word 'informal,' to begin with.

Moments later, she returned her gaze to the captain, addressing him in the Twi'lek's own language, "Where did you last leave port?"

"B-Baranor, my-"

She returned to her counterpart's language of cries and snorts, though this time the furball did not respond, and instead walked down the hall, bobbing from side to side due to its staggered size, looking like it owned the place. Q'elmaric did not dare roll his eyes, though he wanted to. Instead, he brought them up for an instant; but no sooner did the female wrap her right hand around Q'elmaric's throat, lifting him few feet above the floorboards.

"You will take this seriously, captain. I would sooner end your life than see it ruin the empire my master has created." Her tone was even, crisp, and demeaning.

Q'elmaric croaked his acceptance, his voice barely audible to his own ears, much less his men around him, "Yes, yes, of course." He felt the cartilage in his neck suddenly jerk under the strain.

"Good," she whispered in his ear, a faint smile piercing her lips which Q'elmaric's blurred eyesight barely noticed. Then, dismissing him in disgust, she dropped him and headed down a different direction from her accomplice. "Shoot first, and don't ask questions, captain. The Jedi we seek will not show you a second breath's mercy."

"J-Jedi?" one of the men exclaimed, instantly bringing the whole welcome party into chaos. Q'elmaric pawed at his throat, lying on his chest, feeling the effects of internal bleeding consume him. Despite being only footsteps away from the medical room, no one dared offer him help until countless minutes later.

Patiently, Zaithla'in stood erect, her stance frozen as she gazed with ominous, discerning eyes at the fickleness of chartered space before her, from the prow of the Valin Harvester. Tucked away in one ear, there was a tiny black disk; and beside the cylindrical copper hilt at her belt the Twi'lek appeared unarmed.

How predictable: The Corellian VI had yet to show itself, she mused. Quickly approaching from the distant speck of Baranor, the Norfast had already received her Republic-marked shuttle flawlessly. Everything seemed to fall into place, for the moment. And yet she felt chaos.

How this could be did not coalesce. Even she was not as arrogant as to assume all ends, but this delicate matter disturbed her, was frustrating beyond belief. At one final moment the likes of which she had trained decades for, she knew she was mistaken, yet knew full well nothing could be done to one effect without compromising another.

The still walls of her meditation chamber only intensified the pain; any action or wasted movement only made it worse. Whatever disturbance she felt would seize quickly and not let its objective breathe.

Suddenly, something changed: Zaithla'in's eyes darted towards it, sensing its presence. Dropping out of hyperspace, a ship dropped down just above the Valin Harvester, then leveled out at two o'clock, matching speeds. To the lax eye, the Corellian VI would have looked like an extension of its command ship, following its exact movements like it was tied on a string. Zaithla'in nodded curtly in what looked like self reassurance, then put a finger to her ear.

"Open a channel with the Corellian VI," she said. No one replied; it was simply assumed that someone would hear her and have it done.

A voice finally came through, though the connection was filled with static.

"This is the Corellian VI. I've got a problem with the video link, so this old thing will have to do."

"It is no problem," Zaithla'in reassured him. "I do not want a record of this conversation. This is Lord Zaithla'in. What is your crew, captain?"

"Just myself and a droid, si-... er, ma'am." There was a long pause. "I've got the cargo safe and sound - just tell me where to drop it."

"No, captain. This is no longer about the cargo you carry," Zaithla'in intoned. "From now on you have a different assignment."

"Well, as long as credits flow my way-"

"-Do not doubt my word, captain, or you will find yourself on the short end of it."

"What?" Kay'l said, startled. "See, that's the type of talk I don't like."

Zaithla'in's eyes slid wide open. "There are few people as willing to insult my compliments as you are. You _will_ obey my authority, captain."

Wrapping his arms behind his head on the pilot's chair, Kay'l grinned. "What – is that some kind of open threat?"

"May I remind you in whose presence you are in, captain," Zaithla'in demanded, raising her voice. "Who is this, anyways?"

Kay'l considered his options with a mischievous smile, then put two hands on the microphone and bent down to it, looking at the peanut gallery for comments. The droid didn't look like it objected, so breathing in deeply, he whispered, "Your worst nightmare."

A long silence passed through the faint static. Kay'l thought he heard heavy breathing.

Zaithla'in put a hand to her forehead. Why this being resisted her dominance - none-too-lightly augmented by her deft grasp of the Force - did not make sense.

"What? By regulations and contract listings you already know my name, unless, perchance, this is not the affiliation I'm actually working for..."

"You mistake this association, captain, but nonetheless be content with knowing that you will be compensated by either myself or your employer. Your orders are to escort the Norfast and assist with transport when its load is ready to be transferred. You do have a prison chamber – do you not?"

"I've... I've got a makeshift version of an old Mandelorian prototype - enough to carry and incapacitate most unstable _materials_, but nothing too serious."

"Good. We need you to stabilize a sentient before being transferred to our ship. It is a precaution only, but should your skills be further required, we will send word."

"Very well, I'll help you along with this. But I should remind you that my contractor does not like late shipments, so this better be well compensated."

"Do not worry, human," Zaithla'in said, easing back into her casual voice. "It will be. Valin Harvester out."

Zaithla'in sighed, looking down in disbelief, then composed herself, and returned to watch the stars outside her chambers.

From on top of a pipe half-concealed by the corner of the room's air duct, Varon breathed in deeply and focused his thoughts into a trance, feeling the guest's presence immediately. He was being watched.

The room was suddenly dead silent – which could have been a fortunate coincidence, for Varon did not take long to centre himself in it. The instinctive senses prowling about the upper levels echoed off the stainless steel walls with deafening clarity – almost like these figures advertised their presence rather than concealed it. This singular peace of mind, however, afforded Varon little else to picture, for amongst their consuming hate, few other thoughts reigned free enough to dissect.

What truths, breaks of thought, these Sith discovered would have to suffice, Varon concluded. There was little else to do than wait. And he knew that any wait would not be agelong by any means.

Short minutes later, the metal doors slid open again, and a small figure staggered forward, his brooding thoughts interrogating the room before him. It sensed something amidst, that much was clear.

Something breathed.

A tool dropped to the floor with painful clarity from the a corner of the room, holding Varon's breath as the creature came to investigate it. Terrified, and knowing the inevitable, the Rodian soon after revealed himself from his hiding place, and even from that distance Varon could see the glint of sweat on the alien's brow, feel its constricted breathing. Whistling in delight, the furball slowly walked over to it, the flash of a lightsabre, the hilt clutched between clumps of dark fur, seething from one outstretched hand.

Varon knew it was now or never, and wasted no further time, dropping to the floor on one knee and hand as his robes flew out from under him. The glint of stainless Corath in his open hand drew the furball's undivided attention, for the moment; the Rodian was forgotten.

Relaxed, and attentive, Varon held his eyes firmly on the creature, circling it with soft, deliberate steps, until both of them saw no point in negotiation. The furball's black marblish eyes widened, and in its hands, a vibrant streak of red crystalized energy pulsed forward. The time for words had both passed and ended.

Varon's eyes did not waver, and his green sabre pulsed with its near-limitless energy. Both took strong, steady stances. The fur around the creature's pursed lips folded, and if not for the humming of both weapons, Varon would have heard gentle purring from the back of its throat.

With a flicker of Varon's eyes, the creature suddenly turned, sensing the decoy. The Rodian's blaster discharged; the furball felt it coming in time and brought its lightsabre to its guard instinctively. Too instinctively, for it did not recognize its error until its head bounced about before its feet.

Varon sighed, and surrendered a smile to his enemy before disengaging his weapon. Turning to the Rodian, he saw that his opponent had been skillful indeed; the blaster fire ricocheted into the firer's face, killing his friend. Unfortunate, but necessary, the Jedi accepted. Varon moved on, out the hallway. The cleaning crew would certainly demand an explanation that he didn't have.

Meeting the accomplice was easier than he expected, and his unlit lightsabre was still in his loose hand when their eyes met only paces from the cargo hold. Brooding, stormy dark eyes, a portent of many past victims' luck to come, bore into him. Unfazed, Varon held her stare, reaching into her eyes and peering into the conflict within, as she struggled to do the same. Sensation changed to feeling, and blurred to compassion for the other, towards what _they_ likely thought, what _they_ would enviably choose. What they believed, dared, imagined, followed to the point where their actual sight betrayed perceived bearings.

Energy gathered, knitting closely amongst their opposite natures. Finally, the female broke the silence with a haughty beckoning, "I see now why Zaith did not send herself for you, Jedi."

"A mistake she will not make again," Varon assured, calmly readying and adjusting his composure as casually as a middle-aged man would spot an occasion.

She grinned feverishly, and brought her sabre to her hand in suit. "I suppose you know her from a past engagement, then?" she inquired inattentively, drawing her hands forward. "A debt that's never been paid?"

"I am the emissary of a larger faction than you infer, my dear," Varon said decisively, closing in.

"Then forgive my lack of words - scum!"

Varon held his stance, bringing his blade up just in time as she leaped forward and leveled the brunt of her lightsabre at his neck. Parrying and deflecting both beams of light to his side, Varon slid out of the deadlock and struck at her shoulder; cautiously parried. Staggered, she went on the defensive, backing away throughout Varon's vigorous head-level strikes with an unsure touch to her bearings. Her sense of pride was thrown out the window, much too quick for her liking.

The clash of both blades against each other worked into its own rhythmic beat within Varon's senses. His movements became continuous, timed, dancing and playing out a well-known melody with his assailant with deft precision. The female knew where and how to defend, that he would give her; but repeated motions quickly caught her off guard, and pace. The instant she learned the movement and composed her own counter-addition, Varon came at her from another angle, twisting his body to domineer from every prospective strength, every point of thought. Yet she was not as poorly matched as being unable to keep his pace. She was finely trained; and from her pale, impulsive facade leaked no trace of weariness. Varon looked like he would tire first.

The Sith took one step back in defence; then both stood back reflectively, their outstretched blades humming in anticipation. Varon let his eyes fall slightly, relaxing his senses; his adversary breathed in frustration, waiting for an opportune moment. Sensing Varon was losing his desire to fight, she pressed on with an upper-cut; Varon twisted the blow away, spinning his blade between his fingertips lithely, following her wherever she endeavoured. His feet rhythmically walked backwards, surrendering (and timing) her arduous advance.

The next blow he saw coming, identical as the last series. Switching his grip, Varon held her blade at shoulder-height, pressed forward, and rang his blade across hers, towards her fingertips. Unable to react in time, the female could only drop her blade and back away, preferring her intact hand over an unbroken weapon. Pulsing green energy burnt through the Sith's lightsabre with a heart-jolting concussion. The female lost her balance and fell to the floor, the senses in her left hand seemingly shot for an instant. Varon looked unfazed through it, and nonchalantly walked up to her, his eyes bearing down like a master's to a nervous slave.

She looked back at him, frightened, but also with an antagonistic scorn. Fight had not all left her.

Varon let his guard drop, and put the weapon at his side, his eyes still fixed on her. "You know this Zaith master of yours well?" he asked.

It was a long moment before her lips cautiously, resignedly parted. "She is my master."

Sighing, Varon knew there was only one amiable option left. "You will take me to her," he said. "I desire an audience, almost as much as you desire your life right now."

The female recoiled; still bent on believing the lies she had been told of Jedi's deceptive tact, Varon mused. Locked in a hopeless situation, however, she found she had little choice in the matter.

"You want me to do what?"

The static-filled intercom flashed to life again. "You heard me. There's a docking air lock right off your portside. You are to get this Jedi on board."

Kay'l couldn't help reaching for his collar, and looked back at A5. Outrunning an Exchange partner, besides the risk involved, would be worse than begging to have a bounty on his head, and ship. He had little choice. Dealing with Jedi, even subdued ones, usually brought out the worst of all situations. And where there were Jedi, Kay'l did not doubt he'd just as certainly find Sith.

This was not a good thing.

"Very well, ma'am. Proceeding to docking air lock..."

Kay'l shut the intercom off, and sighed. "Well, any suggestions?"

A5's answer was near unintelligible, something involving trash heaps and onboard blaster fire. Shrugging, he turned back to the cockpit, and focused on a good landing. "I'm going to regret this..."

"This won't work," she told Varon emphatically, walking to the air lock station. One guard was nearby: a gesture of Varon's hand, and he lay unconscious on the floor. They would have to ride out the implications of his resurgence later.

"Move or even think of contacting anyone and your throat will be slit faster than you can think," Varon whispered coldly, though not harshly. "Otherwise, _don't worry_, my dear. Leave the rest to me."

She rolled her eyes, smirking. Why she was doing this was beyond even her understanding.

The air lock opened moments later, revealing a roughly-dressed pilot on the other end, twin blaster pistols in hand, aimed towards the ground. His face looked resolute, though his image was far from threatening. Nothing compared to what the man was regarding on the other end.

Varon held the female by the shoulder, her hands tied in front of her. His green lightsabre blade wavered about her neck. Kay'l tried to hold a faint smile, but the sight of the beam of green energy, and of its likely skill in its master's hands, battered his hopes of a warm welcome. Not that he had expected one, anyway.

"Well, uh, welcome. I am Kay'l Nadarin, and this is the Corellian VI," Kay'l stammered, searching for something to say that wouldn't drop him into a hole too big to get out of. "Step... this way."

The female looked at Varon from the corner of her eyes; he had made a suitable impression already. Shrugging, Varon dropped the blade from her neck and let her walk forward. He did not doubt her treachery, but when he planned on returning her to her own ship, there seemed little point of betraying him all too soon.

"Let's make this quick, shall we?" Varon said, meeting Kay'l as they passed through the ship's doors.

"Just leave the driving to me," he returned, naturally gaining some composure. Kay'l gestured to the seats in the main hold. "I can't say I know much about keeping Jedi locked up, so I hope you've got it under control."

"Oh, don't worry about us at all," Varon said, biting down a smile from his lower lip. "She'll be no trouble until we dock on that Harvester-class."

Nodding, Kay'l smiled and began to turn away, but stopped early, his eyebrows in a frown. "And, well, there's just one thing on my mind... sorry for asking. But... Sith use red lightsabre crystals, don't they?" he asked, turning from the female, who stared curiously at Varon, to Varon in unsurity.

Varon shrugged, unvexed. "Commonly, yes. The beginner levels are always given the colour red because it conflicts with the three favourite choices of the Jedi. This crystal, however, is a special one I've picked up in my travels – stronger in some ways, as not all energy cells have the same precision, efficiency and such. It's hard to understand, but I could tell you later if there's time."

Kay'l nodded hesitantly, then replied after a short pause, "Well, I'll get these engines running in no time. Should be a cake walk." He knew that 'later' to a pilot always meant never, though he couldn't quite get around what Varon had just told him. Probably a lie anyway. Lightsabres had never interested him much, always seemed like they were the ultimate weapon in any situation, as well as, of course, being the most difficult to master. The concept of one being any better than one beside it astounded him. Of course, it made sense: energy had to come from a source, and better crystals should augment its potency. Strange that he had never thought of it that way, he mused. He decided not to mention it to A5, and put up the coordinates immediately.

When Kay'l had gone, the female rolled her eyes, cursing silently. "You stole that, didn't you?" she accused. "So you have the two crystals as shipment."

Varon smiled to himself, then turned back to her with a dry face. "You have much to learn, my dear. –What is your name, anyways? You certainly can't like my calling you dear, do you?"

She glared at him sarcastically. "Why? Do I interest you now?"

"Certainly," Varon said, wisely leaving it open.

"You? A Jedi?" She almost laughed, demeaning him.

"Do I interest you?" Varon wondered. "Certainly you do, of course. A Sith would never have followed me to this point, would she? Perhaps my interest is in your indecisiveness."

"Hah!" she grinned, then started scowling. "You think I don't want to return to my own ship and then kill you? You help me more than you know."

"Why, my dear, is the question. Without a lightsabre, you're hardly in the position to kill me, and you've already failed this Zaith master of yours. What penalties do you expect to bear from that?"

"_Zaithla'in_," she corrected. "Remember that name."

"It does have a ring to it," Varon mused. "In an hour, that name will be yours, I imagine. Or perhaps I could commandeer this ship right now and take us into uncharted territory if I'm truly worried about him."

"_Her_. You should be," she chuckled. "You'll see."

Varon sighed. "No, girl, I shouldn't. If you can't tell me anything more than my report told me – a black Twi'lek with many tentacles, a violet sabre, and talented capabilities, then I see no point in keeping you entertained." Not much of a conversationalist, he mused.

The female scowled. Recollecting her memories, she could picture almost every aspect of Zaithla'in that would amuse if not assist Varon – her stride, tone, humour, pride, and even a darker palette of her arrogance. She stayed silent, and Varon turned the other way. Let him discover them for himself, she brooded, if he is truly so divine. Although she could not deny that flicking desire to help this whelp however was necessary, if it meant Zaithla'in's death. Zaithla'in had been a key figure to her childhood, and had raised her in the ways of the Sith, but even she had told her to show no respect to those who are not strong enough to defend themselves, no matter how close they are. And though Zathla'in had not killed her for failing in the past, the penalties had become increasingly intolerable. Some harsher punishments, she recollected, for slight misdemeanours appeared to be only for Zaithla'in's pleasure. She respected her master, but had no compassion for her. And increasingly, this Jedi was beginning to amuse, and surprise her. Perhaps her loyalty to him would get her further than she had committed.

Less than five minutes had passed since they docked with the Valin Harvester. A large clamp latched on to the port side, shaking the small armed transport at an angle, bumping Varon into a wall, and knocking A5 to the floor.

"Seatbelts, Jedi," the female groaned smugly, her hands resting on her thighs like an entertained passenger. Varon didn't respond, only looked at her as he straightened himself and waited for Kay'l. Disturbing beeps and whistles from the cockpit broke both of their lines of thought; metal banged about, Kay'l's curses were more than audible throughout the ship, and even when the droid was upright again, he had to shut it off to stop it from screeching at him.

Shaking his head carelessly, Kay'l emerged out of the corridor, his hands stained with grease. He went to the sink, risking the chance of the Jedi turning on him. Running his fingers through a towel, he turned to Varon. "Well, mission accomplished, at least. There were quite a few requests for yourself on the comm-link, sir."

"I'm sure it can wait," Varon replied nonchalantly. He saw where this was going.

"They found your fur-creature friend in one of the Norfast cargo holds, his head severed. Though last time they checked, you were a woman," Kay'l noted, fixing his eyes on the Jedi.

"This is a good ship you have, Mr. Nadarin. Last time I checked, it was working for the Republic on a mining project, on the other side of the galaxy. I hope you haven't lost your touch," Varon nodded his respects, then turned to the door. He held there a moment. "If nothing else, you still have a chance to change your ways. I can pay you more than this Sith will ever manage, her life soon to leave her, anyway, and grant you amnesty from whatever business you're running right now. There's a task I need a hand in, if your blasters are ready."

"Now, hold on. I'm alrea-"

"You don't want trouble, I'm sure. So are you coming? I could force you to get this ship out of here, and keep our enemy alive, if you'd prefer."

The glint in Varon's eyes overwhelmed him. How everything had escalated so quickly, he could not imagine. The female also stared at him in disbelief, but also saw determination in his features unlike anything she'd known before. Perhaps this was their moment of change.

"What will you have me do?" Kay'l asked.

"Get to the detention floor, and take whoever's alive. With our guest here, that should be no problem for the two of you. From there, either haywire their ship or disable their firepower – and communications, more importantly. Leave the company to me."

She nodded at her mention. "You truly intend to take this ship down almost single-handedly?"

"No, of course not," Varon refuted. "The Sith is all I'm after. You'll deal with our escape. If that's still one of your priorities."

"And what makes you think I'd want to escape a ship I am second in command to?" she asked, prying into whatever flaw in his argument she could think of, though she truly didn't care for that power, after her failure.

"Training," Varon said. "Without a master, or any idea of how to lead – and assisting an enemy in mutiny, what makes you think the crew would such as fear you?"

Her silence was the only sign of faith he would get.

"Good. Now what button opens this door?"

"Panel to the right, top-left," Kay'l said. He looked at the female, who just as blankly returned his gaze. Both had no idea how, or why, anything now is as it is.

Dry smoke seeped in through the open hatch and into the air lock as the iron door severed and disappeared into all four neighbouring walls. The brown robes about Varon slowly vanished into the white smoke, and the air lock doors in turn closed behind him, leaving Kay'l and the female to find their own path once the way was cleared.

Varon felt the air around him begin to thin. Smoke twisted and writhed about below him, containing a mix of oxygen, hydrogen and argon that somehow managed to crystalize or remove certain unwanted (illegal) toxins. Varon removed the lightsabre from his belt, and turned it on, bringing it from his side to his front with both hands. The instant the doors in front of him opened, he did not doubt there would be a modest party just waiting for any reason whatsoever to shoot him, whether or not he was being brought in or accompanied at all.

Outside, the blue and grey tones of the hexagonal hallway reflected a smoky white sheen, but soon cleared once the fog had thinned. Through the reflection, he could see a few guards, blasters raised, waiting for any sign of movement, to fire. Varon hid himself behind one of the door's corners and waited.

"You can come out, Jedi," a middle-aged captain called over the thinning smoke. A dozen guards surrounded the air lock, and each knew full well that Varon had entered, via video link, before the camera had been destroyed by his capable hands. They stood still, fingers locked on their blaster triggers like a falling man would to a cliff face. _Slow, steady breaths_. _Calm, pensive _concentration. Rigid nerves.

Varon thought quickly. Half a score of blaster fire was too much to deflect at once. The instant he moved would spell his death. Sighing, he readied his mind, steadied his compassion, soothed his heart. There would be a time for decisiveness, and another for patience.

Laying perfectly still, he thought he heard a boot graze the metal floor.

"Well, only one way to find out," someone said, chuckling at his own words.

An instant later, Varon heard a heavy tapping come towards him.

Grenade.

Opening a palm, his lightsabre in the other hand, Varon spun into the centre of the air lock, his robes twisting about effortlessly. His eyes glared wide open, searching for a target, ah, yes, right behind the captain, whose features had suddenly become cold and frightened. No sooner had blaster fire unsettled the corridor than an explosion tore most of the company apart, leaving only two alive behind a screen of smoke and dust.

Varon flicked off his lightsabre, sacrificing protection for complete silence: its dull hum would give him away too easily. He preferred the subtle approach, and the least bloody. A click from behind told him that the other two were coming; he had little time left.

Gradually, the smoke cleared enough for him to spot the remaining two, and their weapons. One he could handle by Force-moving the blaster out of from his grasp; the other who'd open fire almost immediately could be killed by deflecting his own blaster fire. It was no sooner thought than done.

By the time Kay'l and the female were on the other side of the docking hatch, a cloud of smoke and the scent of discharged, smoking flesh had spread about the corridor. Varon was nowhere in sight. Shaking her head, the female picked up a blaster and stared into the distance, at the nearest intersection which rested slightly further from them than the extent of the carbon scoring had reached.

"Follow me," she said at length, and casually turned down a smaller passageway, taking the lead.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic**_

_**Depth of One Soul**_

_**Chapter Two: Sundering**_

"So, where are we headed?"

The female stormed down the hallway without a second's thought, turning right at another intersection and finding a serviceable elevator at its end. Kay'l kept off the heels of his feet, hard-pressed to follow.

"The detention cells, where else?" she ricocheted, turning back to face him and crossing her arms as they waited for the lift to descend. Just then, two Sith troopers walked by them, pretending to pay them no notice.

Kay'l's reflex hand acted faster than her recognition, cocking a pistol barrel to her breast before she saw or heard it coming. Her eyes followed the barrel's path, then looked up at him, her face unfazed save for a slight glow in her cheeks.

"I can implode that crude gun's energy cell chambers in the blink of an eye, 'dear,'" she said, flashing him an amused smile. "Or I could just kill you, here, now. The Sith soldiers wouldn't mind, you know, cleaning up a spill of biological decay from these floors for a fair slice of that transport we've landed in." In her mind, she pondered the thought of strangling his throat for a moment, but peculiarly, impulsively, thought better of it.

She sighed. "If you'd heard that enraptured fool of a Jedi's words, you'd know that's where we're headed."

Kay'l stared blankly for a moment, delving back through his memory to Varon's words. That wasn't _literally_ what he thought (or hoped) they'd meant. With a thud, the elevator clicked in place and the white wall subdivided at its centre into an entranceway. Three men stepped out, dressed in the common black bridge officer's uniform. One, with silver-red badges to his breast, nodded reverently to the female, promptly addressing, "Good day, Mistress Carella," before striding off in the direction Carella and Kay'l had come. Carella's face somewhat darkened; her eyes lolled into the ceiling after the three had passed. Kay'l thought he saw her frown – and surely not because of her name's mention. Something did not click in the Sith's unenlightened mind.

"Carella, huh?" Kay'l mumbled sarcastically between the elevator's closed doors. "Would it have killed you to tell us?"

"If you think one's name, past, ideals and faith would have actually mattered until now, helped get us here in some way, I'm disgusted your kind can survive so long," she hissed, absentmindedly punching the floor level codes into the side computer while they waited. When she finished, and the lift jolted into motion, she added, "If such a thing does, ever, matter,_ you can be_ _sure_ I will tell you, sir. Other such detail builds misguiding friendship and kindles thoughtless trust, both of which aren't required nor helpful in rescuing and escaping from anything."

"You'd be surprised..." Kay'l added nonchalantly, "for all your lecturing."

Carella's face was nearly red, and Kay'l still could not tell what exactly was bothering her and why. "I don't believe you meant that the same way as I do, but never mind. It's trivial even talking of such things." She sighed, refraining herself from discussing whatever was on her mind. "Let's carry on."

Kay'l nodded, following her to an open hall, the lights crafted into an ominous spiked star, no doubt some revered symbol, at the ceiling. Kay'l shuddered, the polished, stainless coherence of the blues and greys on the walls and armour of the on-duty Sith guards a stunning sight to behold. Carella stared at him quizzically, waiting. Startled, he flinched and looked about, then followed slowly.

They passed by a handful of helmeted, resplendent guards Kay'l would have easily called his enemies no matter what side he was on, given any other circumstance. A few twists, turns and protocol formalities, organic and automated, later, and they entered a long hall of small, cube-shaped living quarters. Momentarily, Carella paused and stood with her right hand in mid-air between a wall panel and her side, but the impulse dissipated quickly and she moved on. Kay'l could already hear something up ahead: screeching, visceral screams, pulsing energy fields and the hum of an active carburettor. The detention cells were very near.

"Hello, Conar," Carella said smoothly, halting and nodding respectfully to the security officer as he came up to them, absentmindedly blocking their way to the central control panel on their right. Conar looked like any of the regular officers they had just passed, from Kay'l's perspective: gleaming silver armour encased about a black mesh, his helmet on an unoccupied seat beside where he had been working. Brown hair, dark eyes, stout chin: like almost every other man you could see around here, Kay'l mused.

"Greetings, Carella. Lovely to see your face around this area," he said with half-sincerity, and only the faintest smile. Kay'l fought back his usual sarcastic cough at such blatant private allusions. "... What is it that brings you here, Mistress? New orders, or a bit of pleasure?"

Carella turned her shoulders to Conar and Kay'l respectively so that the three of them formed a triangle, and graciously gestured to Kay'l. "This dangerous man just came back with the last shipment of crystals," she announced proudly. "I'm here to see to it that he is well rewarded."

"I see..." Conar formulated, grinning smugly, "and I take it this fierce young man doesn't want the usual credit exchange?"

"No," added Kay'l casually, but unenthusiastically. He didn't want to guess, nor say more than he needed to, holding back a perplexed stare for Carella.

"Well, of course, then!" Conar chuckled, stretching his arms. "I'll see to it immediately."

Kay'l took one bemused look at Carella before turning back and following Conar, who was already pacing down the corridor.

"And one more thing," Carella added, her tone becoming much more formal. Conar turned around, his hands clasped behind him. She sounded hesitant, and looked at Kay'l for some sign of confirmation before she continued.

"Take him to our honoured guest 4A-19, Conar." She nodded vaguely to him, leaning forward a little as the words crossed her lips. "Both of them could use a little push in the right direction, wouldn't you say?"

Conar took a moment for it to register, then beamed. "Oh! yes, of course. Zaithla'in must have you in the highest regard, I'll bet."

Kay'l smiled hesitantly, then followed Conar as he turned around, down a clostrophobic hall of tiny black cells, all heralded by thick, unwieldy stainless carbonite doors. _This had better be worth it_, he thought. Although, this time, for what it was worth, at least his reputation wasn't at stake.

The security door clicked open, hissing as pressurized steam and pacifying gas spilt forth. Kay'l almost forgot Conar's advice to hold his breath, but coughed all the same at the sensation as it hit his eyes. Conar patted him on the shoulder. "Well, good luck, man. She's all yours." Then he left.

Kay'l walked in, watching his head down the two heavy steps into the cell, a few feet below the walkway. A long figure lay on the far bench which ran around the cell, curled up in a blanket with a horrified look on her face – and before he thought she had seen him enter. Blood had seemingly long left her features, he noticed, stepped down and returning her gaze.

Kay'l looked at her quizzically, trying not to move, or in any way frighten her. There were tear marks on her cheeks, and the room's smell was certainly less than inviting, but otherwise she looked in healthy enough shape, concealed under a white cotton blanket the Sith had likely not cared to take from her. She looked at Kay'l, preparing, it seemed, for the worst.

"W-... -who are you?" Kay'l asked at length, resting one of his hands on the wall. She was barely a young child, scarcely matured yet, and looked terrified. The mere thought of what Carella had put him up to suddenly hit Kay'l in the face, and made him feel sick.

The girl looked at him with wide, open eyes, likely fearing for her life; and she didn't reply. Kay'l looked at her figure openly, then reeled his eyes back down to the cold metal floor, fighting against his will to not look afraid – or anything else but welcoming. He had never had good experiences with children before, even relations whom he cared only a little for (or, most likely, hated). Lying there, prone and helpless, her lower lip began to shudder. She had no protection, no saviour who could take her away from all the pain and agony, even for a moment; and no doubt the guards had more than violated her at every chance they'd had.

Hesitantly, but resolutely, Kay'l took a step forward and held out his hand. He started the conversation again. "Hello. I'm Kay'l. Kay'l Nadarin. My friends and I are here to get you out of here," he said softly, somewhat more bluntly than how he thought he'd sound.

The girl only looked at him with guilt-stricken despair written in her eyes. He realised now how that could not have meant anything more than the false promises she'd likely accepted in following someone here initially.

A booming _thud!_ threw both of them out of their trails of thought. Some piece of machinery had clicked in place, and started running.

"Switch on the red button to your right," a voice rasped through an old intercomm, loudly enough to make Kay'l flinch. The audio stayed on, and some shuffling was heard before the crackling surface sound was turned off, and the surveillance camera behind them, in one high corner of the room, shut down. Besides the churning, dull hum of moving cylinders in the distance, the room was soon dead silent. The next step Kay'l took forward resounded darkly off the hollow walls. Frightened once more, the girl instinctively drew back to the corner of her bench, guilty eyes and adrenaline-garbed, thin arms waiting on Kay'l's movements. She looked little more than an innocent slave girl.

Kay'l backtracked, feeling less guilt now than he'd had had initially in coming here, his mind far beyond even the slightest thought of harming her. "W-...What's your name?" he asked again, trying to keep a straight tone throughout a myriad of mixed emotions.

Impulsively, the girl banged a palm on the wall, then looked back at Kay'l aggressively, determinate, but also with a faint tone of care. For a moment, Kay'l flinched, and he put a hand to his face, feeling dizzy. Uneasiness swept over him. He closed his eyes, noticing that he couldn't see very well out of them.

Almost immediately, a flash of distinct, blinding colour ignited and disappeared in the space of an eye blink. The vision was too bright at first for him to decipher it, but gradually it came back to him. Grass. Green meadows. A beige, aqua-trimmed, flat city. Beautiful, picturesque sunrise, the kind even travel propaganda would have to take great pains to create digitally; though a speck of black, almost hidden from view, drew the eye into a corner – perhaps the shadow of a moving spacecraft (one of many small ships moving about the high thermals). And in the centre stood a tall, well-built woman – long, fair blond hair, beautiful, piercing eyes – with a young child in her arms. Kay'l thought he saw initials in a crevice of the woman's robe, likely a clothing tag, but couldn't make out the words. There was also a glint, a strange yellow light covering most of the sky. It looked like the reflection of an old desk lamp. Quickly, he tried to spot other details and reflections that could tell him more of the picture, but the image began to blur, then disappear, leaving Kay'l with his eyes shut, his hands on his forehead, standing in front of the little girl once more.

Deep, heavy breaths, feeling almost like a burden after that glimpse of paradise, tried to centre and re-coordinate his senses. Gradually, Kay'l remembered where he was, why he was here, _Carella_, _Varon_, and what they were doing. When his eyes opened again, and he looked once more onto the lost, hopeless girl, he still could not remember who she was, or if she had ever told him.

A few minutes passed before his mind finally readjusted, and Kay'l could gather the strength to talk to her.

"What was that?" he asked, his tone dancing with uncertain astonishment. Part of him knew she must have the answers he was looking for; another part had no idea why he was asking her that question; and Kay'l found it difficult throughout to keep a straight face or state of mind.

From her tiny corner of the room, the girl kept her eyes glued on Kay'l, though Kay'l noticed that she did not look frightened anymore. What she was doing bewildered him, but somehow, as if from somewhere deep inside of him, he felt that he knew she was not hostile. That she only meant to _help him_.

The effects wore down, and Kay'l felt light-headed. The girl still stared at him, devoid of emotion's guile. He felt as powerless to the world as she must feel to this starship; and silent brooding swept over him for the instant, until he saw her near his shoulder.

_Kay'l._

"Kay'l," she said. The soft, creamy voice trailed through his senses and the echoing chamber almost without resistance, as if Kay'l had recalled it by memory. Her hand reached his shoulder, causing him to blink a few times before recognizing the place, and her. She had stood up, and looked roughly a foot shorter than him. Small white robes were wrapped about her, obviously makeshift clothing that was easy for the guards to clean. Her hair looked unkempt after obvious negligence shown her by the guards and other Sith officers. But what truly captivated Kay'l were her sparkling, resplendent jade green eyes, scintillating as if light bounced off the contours of her retinas before shimmering back into her surroundings with embellished charm. It captured the pallid fury of braced lightning, as he had seen once, in an electicity test on one of the Core Worlds, a soft energy he had never expected to find again in all his travels. She looked pale, searching for something. _Something within me_, he measured.

"Let's go," she said, taking his shoulder, her head gesturing to the door. Kay'l shook his head about to wake himself up, then opened the door and led her outside, snatching his blaster rifle from its resting place on the wall outside the girl's cell, as he saw blaster fire and thick smoke wafting from the control station he had left Carella in.

* * *

"So, he really did something that great for her to let him in there?" Conar wondered, part in admiration, leaning against the detention controls. He turned to Carella, his only source of amusement. The room had been almost utterly silent for the past five minutes.

"Well, actually... she didn't let him in there," Carella admitted, her eyes coolly staring into Conar's own with a look of prideful rebellion. What would have been a satisfying exchange of glances suddenly panged into a feeling of bitter, poison-edged terror. Conar's eyes bulged; he didn't dare reach for his blaster, as it wouldn't have done him any good anyways. Within moments, he lay still on the floor, lifeless, still clutching at his neck.

At his fall, the other guards in sight almost immediately had their blasters drawn, taking aim at the young Sith. Carella searched for her lightsabre and brought a hand up to catch it in mid-air, then remembered what had happened to it after her parley with Varon, and crouched under the cell controls as laser fire sparked from all directions above her. This might not have been the wisest course of action, she mused.

"Rogue Jedi in Detention Blocks 4-A. I repeat, traitor alert: rogue Jedi in the prisoner's quart-"

It was easy to place and lock on to the man by the comm-link, having taken in a long survey of her surroundings the minutes after Kay'l had left them. The man lay dead in an instant; though the fact hardly mattered now that the entire ship was alerted to their whereabouts. Perhaps Kay'l had heard it, and would at least hurry up with rescuing that child. Where Varon or her master were, she didn't try to guess. What mattered now was her survival, and for the first time, she was being threatened on her own ship, the only home she had ever known.

Carella risked a glance between rounds of blaster fire and caught sight of five armoured Sith troopers heading down the hall towards her, in addition to the three scattered around the detention controls. She reached for the blaster pistol at her belt, got on one knee to take aim. Her skill with pistols was far from outstanding, but it would be enough to take out the remaining guards. The five troopers would have to be dealt with simultaneously. She risked her position and took aim at the main control panel, igniting, sending a deafening shockwave through the comm-link before the life feed went dead. Hopefully, Conar had left Kay'l's room open, now that the doors couldn't be controlled from here; but currently it wasn't of much interest to her. Carella ducked another round of blaster fire, then pulled up and fired at the nearest guard, a Twi'lek woman investigating the burnt out control desk.

The timed, heavy footsteps of approaching Sith troopers echoed further and louder into the control room past every breath. Carella took aim at another guard, taking him down; but not before a stray blaster shot from behind hit her in the shoulder. Ducking down, she dropped the pistol and clutched at the wound, which felt like a hot metal branding iron had seared and scorched her skin. She fought hard to concentrate, but saw little else she could do. Smoke from the burnt controls stretched further into the room, and with little place to hide, Carella crept into the foot space under one of the boards and waited.

The Sith troopers' footsteps began to slow rhythmically, then stop at the room entrance, blasters drawn. The last surviving guard was obviously trying to make eye contact and communicate wordlessly. The troopers shuffled a little, then spread out, their weapons certainly aimed at the console Carella was under, though the smoke obviously hindered their chance to take initiative. Their thoughts were too vague for her to pick up; she had not the strength left to fight past her pain and see clearly. Regardless, she had her instincts to at least keep them at arm's length for the moment.

Carella winced. The smoke hurt her eyes, and it quickly became a struggle to keep them open. Her eyes closed, she felt blind and helpless, despite her training both at nullifying discomfort and seeing through the exteriors around herself. That excruciation, unbearable pain! She could not find the strength to concentrate.

Time began slipping from her side. Her blaster pistol lay on the ground half a foot out of arm's reach, and directly in the troopers' line of vision. Carella cursed; her heavy breathing would give her away soon enough. She had to get out of this. Her life depended on it.

Suddenly, almost without warning, the pain seemed to go away, chilling her heart. Carella shivered, feeling light-headed all at once like a spectre had drained the blood from her head and torn the floor out from under her, leaving Carella endlessly falling in space towards the nearest source of gravity. She caught the image of one armed trooper in the corner of her mind, held on to it. For an instant, it was all she could think about, until the pain began creeping back through her senses and hatred welled up above her spine, near the wound. Carella's mind, then, felt like lightning.

The first Sith to find her, cradled up behind one control panel, did not have the time to shout a warning.

* * *

"It's all safe, kid," Kay'l called, turning back through the thick shroud to the cell block hallway. "You can come out, now." His blaster lay at his side, and only when the automated fire extinguishing program sprinkled into action did Kay'l finally locate Carella, lying with her back to a control panel, her left hand clutching at her right shoulder in pain. Kay'l squatted down beside her, then turned his head back to make sure the little girl was coming.

"You alright?" he asked Carella, reaching over to touch her shoulder.

Carella's returning stare spoke of weariness and intense agony, and it startled him. Her eyes suddenly closed, then squinted open, and she put a hand up gently to stop him. "It's fine," she said. "We should get moving."

Kay'l emerged into pensive thought, fighting against a persistent nagging impulse to find some kind of bandaging or care for the wound before they continued. But eventually, he reasoned, there was no point to it even if he had the resources on hand; they had to get back to his ship, alive. Nothing else mattered to them now but their safety. Though why he trusted a Sith Apprentice so suddenly, his conscience paid little heed to.

"Let's go," the girl cried from behind them, coming up again to Kay'l's shoulder, just as she had in the cell (though this time he was at eye-level). Her face seemed to remind Kay'l of some foreign urgency, though how she possibly knew what was going on better than her rescuer remained a mystery.

"And what's your name?" Carella asked, smiling faintly as if she found a natural satisfaction in those words.

The little girl straightened, taking a good look at Carella with noticeable discomfort. "Elianne," she mumbled hesitantly.

"Very, well, Elianne... Let's go," Carella agreed, and reached to Kay'l to help her stand. Elianne handed Carella her pistol, and Kay'l quickly took the lead, absentmindedly finding the passageway they had come out of at an intersection up ahead. After a few moments, they had reached the main corridor leading to the elevator, but Elianne came up to Kay'l and stopped him before they went on, sounding curiously afraid.

"Don't go that way," she said suddenly. Kay'l turned and faced her, somewhat surprised. "Go some place else. There's more people that way."

"Kid – _Elianne_, sorry," Kay'l corrected himself carefully; "I know how to handle a blaster against these guys. Don'-"

"-She's right, Kay'l," Carella agreed from behind her. "There – take that pathway to your left. It's a longer way, but there's rarely any guards patrolling that corridor."

"If they were looking for us, they'd already be here," Kay'l mumbled, but he was forced to agree. He knew what he was doing and what he had to, which was enough for now. Acquiescently, he led them on, blaster raised.

* * *

Varon scuttled through the hallway and into the bridge elevator in complete solitude. The place lay ominously quiet, save for a lone branch of terminals its users had not bothered to shut down. The crew had doubtlessly vacated this level upon Varon's arrival, and no doubt to prepare a few surprises on the way ahead. At a glance to his right, Varon saw a solitary crewman dart past an intersection in the hall ahead, but paid him no notice. The worst the man could do was shut an elevator down, and at this point, whatever his intention, his presence would mean that that less attention would be laid on Kay'l and his accomplices, helping them find a safer way out. Most of the guardsmen had already been dealt with by him, anyways, and Kay'l and the girl were more than capable.

Satisfied with his surroundings, Varon punched a few numbers into the elevator terminal, sat back, and waited as the elevator's lift cables raced into action towards the bridge, relaxing his muscles. The stillness of the ship about him bore deep into Varon's conscience. In a way it focused him, both in his senses and in the back of his mind. He knew she was here, somewhere, dutifully hidden as all young Sith found themselves, and their own thoughts, after the trials of the Academies. This Zaithla'in had a power, or at least a knack for things, that Varon had rarely felt in a Sith before. The ship, and nearly every guard he had wandered into, had that copious scent about it – and it wasn't simply some power of Sith discipline. He couldn't place it – it almost reminded him of someone else, some other trait which felt so distinctly sour – and why it even mattered now was trivial; but he sensed this connection heavily. Searching her thoughts did not help at all: her will could almost not be infiltrated.

The floor numbers, digitally imposed above the elevator doors, began changing faster; Varon instinctively popped his ears, though the pressurized atmosphere did not require him to. Gradually, the numbers slowed in increments, then halted, nearly 30 levels above the docking hangar. Varon swallowed again, unclipped his lightsabre from his belt, and adjusted his eyes, looking about the hallway, then into the main bridge directly in front of the elevators. Logically, he knew there would likely be two scores of pilots, crew and Sith warriors waiting for him the instant he stepped past the door's thick, iron plating; what he didn't understand was why he could not sense any of them.

The command deck felt, and looked, entirely abandoned. Cautiously stepping out into the great hall, Varon looked around skeptically. It was dimly lit, its walls a crisp black tone that sharply contrasted the stainless steel of the ship's roof plating. Where he had expected to see layouts, schematics, and systems consoles, there was a bare, daunting, empty wall. Its opposite side, shaped like an inverted curve, following the contour of the ship, commanded a spectacular view of the bow; but other than that, the deck offered an ideal training room, an inference that caused Varon to cock an eyebrow. He already knew that his response would have likely been meticulously planned for, but he had never guessed – nor could now justify – what he saw now. On the far side, centred between the ends of the room, stood one solitary, black figure, and even at that distance Varon could make out that she was smiling.

Varon stepped forward, automatically pinpointing and feeling each and every muscle, fibre, and cell of his body, stretching it, honing it, and brightening his list of options. He held her stare with a grim, expressionless frame of mind, taking no privileges to his task at hand. He simply closed the gap, and Zaithla'in waited, humouring him.

Zaithla'in's smile broadened the moment he passed the centre of the room, her arms relaxed and ready beside her. From what Varon guessed, she appeared to be slouching.

"What has it been, Varon? Five, ten years, since the academy came looking for me?" she reflected, tilting her head in mocking compassion. "I'm not impressed."

Varon's guise did not flinch, but he slowed down as he approached within ten feet of Zaithla'in. "You do not need to be," he agreed. "It was a while before they locked on to a few hidden frequencies, but I'm scarcely impressed that you could not find this out."

"And what makes you think I didn't, Jedi? Our Corath business here is purely legitimate, and I doubt they spent so much time just for you to come this far." Her eyes lowered, noticing Varon's lightsabre at his belt. "Is that a heresy, Varon?"

"Think what you will imagine," he answered, halting as the folds of his robes swayed out from under him, "but the souls of all those living will never pity you more than I see you now. Your brief reign is at an end." He paused, gauging her. "But this authority did not come from the Republic."

"Ha! Then you are a band of mercenaries after all." The brooding pupils of her piercing, red eyes ascended again to meet his own, and she held his gaze for a while, pensively. "I see in your eyes a fire that longs for revelations, forgotten jubilees," she said finally.

"The Taris authorities betrayed you, Zaithla'in." Varon's voice was grave, heralding an unsaid truth. "This empire of yours is nothing but a burning ecstacy, shedding light to the torture and lament you've wrought upon this planet." His calm complexion gradually engaged into a dire stoicism. "I will not let you die in sanctity."

"Good," Zaithla'in whispered. "Then I will enjoy this. And remember it."

* * *

Carella and Elianne watched Kay'l go, the elevator doors sliding in front of him as the two made their way down to the hangar. What made him think that the Jedi needed his help, Carella mused, was beyond her understanding. Though, this way, it made her life a whole lot easier.

Elianne leaned on the wall in the opposite corner, looking down gravely. Splitting up on board a giant ship was her idea of never seeing each other again, and the thought brought bad memories to bear. A tear rolled down her cheek, though she was bitterly silent.

To her surprise, Carella noticed it almost instinctively. She neither moved nor looked at Elianne; but from one contemplative sigh both girls seemed to understand each other. "Be calm, sweet child," she whispered suavely.

_Sleep, breathe, wonderful things,_

_Scarcen now anxiety._

_Sleep, sigh, restoring seams_

_My love, your dreams... serenity_.

Elianne was silent. Shyly, she rose her head to look at Carella, awe-struck.

Carella continued aloud, the slight shrug of her shoulders not seeming to pay mind to Elianne's rapture:

"And Hope, wish, delay your teem,

Let go your speech, undone ecstacy,

Caress the bonds of that you feel

Faith in ends of, nature's grief."

"Where did you learn that?" Elianne asked her softly.

Carella fondly smiled, looking down at her. "I remember, my mother used to tell me those story rhymes when I was a child, though it was so long ago..." She paused in reminiscence. "I only remember a little of the first lines, although I can't remember what language she said them in. I made up some of those words to finish it."

Carella looked down at Elianne's face, star-struck with wonder. The child's mouth was half-open, between saying something and turning around. It appeared clear to Carella that she wanted to express herself, but didn't know of anything to say. And it brought feelings to her that she had so long forgotten, almost making Carella feel the same way.

"I'm glad you liked it," she smiled, somewhat bewildered.

Carella's eyes turned to the elevator doors, and the lift came to a halt. Blaster marks still scarred the walls outside and bodies littered the floor, the same victims she and Kay'l had seen on their way to the elevator terminal. From the looks of things, Varon had not yet returned.

"Hold on," Carella said. "I've got an idea."

Slowly standing up, she took Elianne by the hand, glancing out either side of the elevator hall before heading in the opposite direction she and Kay'l had initially come from. Elianne felt a spark of adrenaline, sensing her companion's freshened vigor, but she duly saw that something wasn't right.

"Where are we going, Carella?" she asked curiously, tugging on Carella's hand slightly.

Carella turned to her and smiled. "There's something I'd like to show you, Elianne. Don't worry, it's not too far." And we seem to have tons of time from the look of things, she thought.

Elianne visibly did not feel so sure. She looked about suddenly, and lost track of trying to keep up, leaving Carella to pull her hand forward every so often. Her hand began to tremble slightly; and by this time Carella stopped and asked what was the matter.

"I... I don't know," Elianne said sheepishly. She looked back down the hall in fear.

"Well, _don't_ worry!" Carella replied, playfully rubbing Elianne's hair. "We're quite alright."

Though Elianne didn't deny it, she did not feel the same way as her companion. Down the hall, Carella let go of Elianne's hand and stepped up to a terminal, carefully entering a set of codes she hoped wouldn't alert the bridge of anything unusual. Elianne looked about cautiously, trying to spot a pair of prying eyes. Right beside the terminal, a small, single person-sized door slid open. Soft hues of red emanated from inside, though the room didn't appear to shed its own source of light.

"Come in," Carella offered, humbly gesturing for Elianne to head in first. Eventually, the child assented and gingerly stepped in. When they both had entered, Carella closed the doors and lit the room from an inside panel near the entrance.

Elianne was a few paces inside when the lights flickered on, casting pale, lurching shadows throughout the room. It was larger than the prison control centre, with a giant practice room in the middle which stood in for a meditation chamber. Two wall-mounted beds lay on the far side, near a door which likely led to a washroom, and a row of tall lockers lined the wall nearest to her bed, apparently used as a Sith's 'wardrobe.' At the far corner, a small metal chest provided the only unknown necessity to her room's modest assortment. The lights were too dim to tell precisely, but Elianne guessed that the walls were some kind of greyish-red colour throughout most of the room, though the floor on the far side, near her bed and lockers, was contrastingly white, after a black margin split the floor colours across the middle of the room.

As if on impulse, Carella sauntered to one locker, second from the right, and began undressing in front of Elianne, leaving her to gaze about the room as she stood near its centre. Behind her, Elianne noticed a slight curve in the floor, part of a circular crevice which slid the floor down one inch, denoting a circle to meditate over. It wasn't long before her eyes strayed on the chest in the corner, something Carella had guessed would happen, before she noticed her stare.

"You can open it if you want," Carella answered the unsaid thought, wriggling into a soft, thin white undershirt. "Just don't touch anything inside it. You can press the red button."

Walking over to the chest, she now noticed how it looked much more like a box or compartment than like a chest at all; a rectangular middle section in the top and front side could open out, not the entire top half. Elianne knelt down hesitantly, then looked for the button.

Carella tightened and adjusted the buckle on her black mesh leggings, then put on a contrasting thick red shirt before making her way over behind Elianne, who still stood there, motionless. Resting a hand on her shoulder, she felt Elianne's cheek had gone cold.

Under her eyes lay two scattered papers, a few mechanical bits and ends as well as a violet crystal, perhaps components of a lightsabre. A pouch tied to one corner was suspended in mid-air, barely visible unless one looked for it. And in the middle, resting between the other unassuming, haphazardly-tossed in pieces, was a dark, cold, weathered silver hilt, twin lengths of violet-copperish connotations running about the metallic weapon, its offensive end lain with complimenting twin curved spikes. Looking at her reaction, Carella knew now of what fear her little friend fought.

"Here," Carella said, kneeling down to gather her belongings. She reached into the pouch and undid the string, pulling out a hand bracer lined in black silk, with a small metal readout attached for the forearm. She put it on, then emptied the compartment, save the two papers she had no use for.

Elianne stepped back instinctively, seemingly trying to pull herself as far away from Carella as possible without physically moving. Carella looked at her, feeling estranged, but also slightly frustrated.

"What? You don't like it?" she asked, packing the pieces about her belt and pockets, but leaving the lightsabre carefully pointed away from them in one hand. Still kneeling, her upright knee took a small step towards Elianne.

Elianne stepped back with one foot, and didn't reply.

"Come on, I'm not going to hurt you," Carella pressed. "It's safe, Elianne." A sudden thought crossed her mind, and Carella smiled reassuringly. "Here, I'll show you-"

Over her knee, raised just above the empty compartment, the blade's stark, suffused energy burst to life. Elianne felt her heart leap, then cry out in pain. The lightsabre's vibrant, enticing red glow beamed in front of her, swathing most of Carella's face in a dominant, orangish-red glare, a mask of defiance; Elianne screamed and ran, heading to the closed door to beat out her troubles in terrified helplessness.

"Wh-" Carella called, rising to stand; though she never made it that far. Her consciousness abandoned her without warning, as the pulsing lightsabre fell from her loose fingertips. She fell on her arms beside the compartment (now cloven in two as the weapon fell just outside her arm's reach), lost in dark, thoughtless depression.

* * *

Their blades crackled into life in front of them. In what seemed like a graceful stride forward Zaithla'in pressed the attack, her crimson sabre falling forward with keen, agile equilibrium. Varon swivelled his wrists clockwise, winding his blade around into a formidable parry, while arcing his back in compensation of balance. If Zaithla'in's initial charge had seemed effortless, however, her counter-attack danced beyond parallel, hands writhing to life, cooly accurate at inhuman speeds in inhuman angles. Varon was forced on the defensive with tense, rigid difficulty, incapable, weighing the risks, of reversing the tide.

The spite of Zaithla'in's deft advances bore deep into Varon's resolve almost immediately, himself losing ground at odd intervals. Varon did not doubt Zaithla'in's upper hand lay purely in her skill, but almost cursed at how at ease she must feel in her own perfect training ground. He hadn't imagined what struck him now as an unforgivable mistake on his part: he had played right into her trap; but he had expected men, not this. Her black figure in the gothic, dark room dealt tricks to his senses. He had no environmental advantage, or variable, to speak of.

For a moment Zaithla'in relented, side-stepping so as to put the starscape at her back. Varon brandished his sabre single-handedly, then attacked. Stepping back, Zaithla'in brought his advance forward to a broad angle, then thrust her blade at Varon's, parrying with doubled strength. Though it slowed Varon's strike down, she could not hold him, and had to duck back before it would have leveled through her head. Her eyes, glistening to the focused light of her sabre, never lost sight of his blade; but her lips, moments ago pursed in a lavish smile, had certainly changed colour since.

"That is my crystal, Jedi," Zaithla'in spat, as Varon made no effort to advance. Apparently, she thought that new crystal had something to do with his strength.

The Jedi's instinctive tension suddenly relaxed, though he did not loosen his stance. "Oh? I'm certainly glad you've noticed."

Zaithla'in's eyes again locked onto his, interrogating what secrets he had left inside of him; Varon stared at her intimidating, intense red-tinted eyes impassionately, and darted his lightsabre forward.

"You cannot win," he said between breaths, exchanging and prying for contested momentum at every retaliation. "What's left of your men won't be here to save you this time."

Zaithla'in cackled, bashed his blade aside and raced forward with near-perfect, graceful balance. "Then arrogance will be your undoing, Jedi." Her cold lips glistened with shallow hubris. "Ha! If I thought you'd be my match, you would not have found me alone. You already forfeited your life in finding me... I do not feel like offering my mercy to a coward... one who corrupts expendable apprentices. Though, perhaps... tracing your ship back to some hidden Jedi base _would_ prove much more entertaining."

Varon bared his teeth and bashed her blade to one far side, leaving her chest unprotected. Zaithla'in's opposite foot knocked him to the floor before he could take advantage; unrelenting, she boxed him into a backwards roll on the ground, the edge of her lightsabre charring the floor where he had just been as she followed.

Varon rolled away from another blow, then managed to get one knee up and block her head-on – though barely parrying the counterstrike. Zaithla'in lashed out with her foot, though this time he dodged it in time, regaining his footing before she could pursue.

Again, their blades met between them. Varon tested his luck, swerving around Zaithla'in's counter and pressing forward, searching for a weakness in her form. Zaithla'in reversed her grip, parrying Varon's blade short inches from her torso; then batted it away, twirled her hold of her lightsabre in the off-hand and came down with a backwards-hold. Varon gave up ground, attentive to her altered style before he vied for initiative once more.

In the darkness about him, the change in her handling, and thus technique, pitted Varon at the brink of his limits, barely able to keep up with Zaithla'in's flurry. He thought it blind luck that Zaithla'in had not pressed home her advantage, perhaps pretending not to know that he could not afford another lost inch between her closely-parried strikes and his breast. From what he could tell, she must still be figuring him out, though every parry and subsequent backstep brought him closer to the wall behind him. The starscape lay to his right, illuminating very little if anything of Zaithla'in's lithe, delicate figure. They were nearing the wall; Varon changed pace, turning aside a few strikes, only to find she had an even stronger backhand counter aimed precisely at his lower flank. A seditious grin burst from her supple lips and she took the hilt of her sabre in both hands, leaping forward.

Steadfastly planting a foot on the wall behind him, Varon leveled his blade and pushed forward with all his might, entangling the lightsabres into a deadlock before repelling the staggered Sith Lord back a few paces. Caught off guard, Zaithla'in lowered her blade to one side and raised her hand; Varon threw his lightsabre at her before she could concentrate. Zaithla'in surged backwards in a Force-guided flip across half the room, landing down on almost the other side. Willing his weapon back into his hand, Varon took a step forward, breathed deeply, and passively stared her down.

Suddenly, the artificial lights flashed on, almost blinding the two for an instant. Varon put a hand above his brow and squinted, finding it harder to see with the lights on than the darkness he had just adjusted his eyes to. A door on the left, different from the one Varon had used to enter, abruptly slid open.

Coming from a full sprint, to nearly slipping backwards on the smooth, diligently washed steel flooring, an awestruck Kay'l, twin pistols in his hands, found himself unsure of what to do.

The sight of drawn lightsabres once this day had already been more than an unsightly and unwelcome surprise; but the sight of his employer and commandeerant facing off as two rival Jedi brought the tinge of bile to his stomach.

Both pairs of eyes froze on Kay'l, neither combatant willing to move. The Sith and Jedi stood at opposite ends, and neither could call themselves Kay'l's enemy. Or true ally for that matter. For a brief, endearing moment, time passed, and no one moved.

Zaithla'in leapt forward. Varon twisted to one side and caught her strike with ease, calmly returning to what seemed like a rehearsed parley, neither daring expend all their concentration on the other when a third, compensating party lingered. Zaithla'in particularly slowed down measurably, though Varon looked less than enthusiastic to press through the tide.

The display before Kay'l captured a sight more frightening than his eyes had ever seen. His hair on the back of his spine stiffened to the point where the front of his shirt might have moved back a quarter-inch. Suddenly, his life flashed before him, no more than a greyish shard in the clouded background of the scene lain before him, the scene his eyes were never meant to bear. He felt his heart rush, his mind clearen, and his eyes fade to a starry black impurity. The sights all his life had ever seen did not match up to the vibrant zest he saw coursing through his patron and accomplice, in one pure, intense frame.

And at that moment, Kay'l knew, his future, as well as his past, would never again be the same.

Zaithla'in's eyes coursed with fury, burdening Varon's conscience with every tempting pause in her advance. The green and red glares of both sabres sparkled over her black, moist Twi'lek features, revealing an almost unnatural beauty. She fought relentlessly, conquering fresh ground as near to Varon's resolve as she could reach, before the Jedi would again tear back her defences and pensively retaliate. There was no coarse air about either of their stances; nothing seemed as it should not be. Yet Varon and Zaithla'in were not struggling to defeat one another: their battle, to its end, was towards Kay'l.

"Release that anger, child," pled Zaithla'in, diving sidewards to cover ground after Varon quickly side-stepped a thrust the moment earlier. Her face lavished an endearing confidence which Varon fought hard to diffuse. He worked left of and above her strikes, tightening his grip towards Zaithla'in's strong points of attack. He already knew this battle would not be won over skill alone; as she did, slowing her successive thrusts, aiming with refined accuracy with the hope of incapacitating his blade arm.

Varon parried the strikes, then kicked at her shin, backing away. Brandishing the sabre far in front of him, his off-hand settled into place just by his hips. His blade darted swiftly behind him, singing a metallic fable through the back of his ears, and warming his heart. The ion-charged blade would have singed the ends of his hair had it been one strand closer.

Zaithla'in set her blade by her side, paying close heed of her enemy's honed clarity, but flexing her muscles in indemnity. Her eyes narrowed, carefully watching him. Breathing deeply, she waited for him.

Varon's shoulders leveled; his momentum swayed. Pinpointing and bracing his balance, he shot one foot to the left, then darted forward with the edge of his lightsabre, staggering his angles and strides as unnaturally as wildfire. The clash of blades rose dramatically, in dynamics, passion, and tempo.

Finally Zaithla'in conceded, spun her blade against his and jumped back. Her hand shot out, tautening as if surreally clutching his entire body. Varon felt a breath of wind pass by him, then a push backwards. His lightsabre flicked off and fell away from him, though he was only forced a few steps backwards before he regained control. The corners of Zaithla'in's lips beamed sadistically; her right hand raised to the ceiling, her left holding her lightsabre outwards at waist-level. A compartment in the middle of the ceiling unfolded, releasing three weapons droids to hover down behind the Sith Lord. And all three were entirely black, save a few silver-edged ridges connecting the various metal body components and a violet opal globe three centimetres wide. From her impression, Varon guessed, they were likely decked out with weapons systems.

Kay'l gasped inaudibly, but did not hesitate. Varon had given him one impending stare as warning; that was enough. His pistols were raised, eyes leveled, targeting lights meting the first combat droid ion-charged blaster rounds before its weapon systems had warmed up.

Varon called for his lightsabre anxiously, its cold metal grasp reaching his hand just as the first charges strafed the air behind him, as he rolled dexterously to one side. His blade felt like swift revelation to his hands, working as deftly as an outreach of his will.

The two droids split up, darting to either side of the room while Zaithla'in stood in the middle, switching her blade off. One followed Kay'l, rerouting fire and aiming at the entrance. Instinctively, Kay'l hid tightly against the side wall, with barely a half metre of protection. A fully-armed droid like these could be as swift and deadly as any assassin, he knew by experience, rolling back in the open at one of its timed intervals between rounds. He only dared take two shots in the open; one hit its portside blaster, shaking the droid more than damaging it. Kay'l aimed with one pistol as it wound around his corner, leaving him no cover. The shot impacted dead on, nearly scorching its targeting sensor. Ducking, then lunging to the other side of the entranceway, Kay'l let the triggers fly, rending a fireworks of sparks and blaster marks upon the droid as it backed off, weapon systems still firing to the last.

Varon approached him just after, gesturing hurriedly. "Let's get going! She went up this air shaft."

Kay'l duly scratched his head, unsure of what happened. Zaithla'in was nowhere to be seen, and the shaft Varon pointed to was the one the droids had come out of. "Hold on. You mean you want to follow her?"

"Do you think there's another reason why I wanted to come here?" Varon refuted, unconsciously having that air of working things out in the back of his mind while he spoke. "This must lead somewhere... – a mechanics' hangar – somewhere."

"Wait," Kay'l said, still wondering. "Hold on a moment. Why didn't those droids have shield systems?"

Varon didn't pay the question much attention, answering absentmindedly. "Practice droids. They weren't made for direct combat; more for Jedi training. This shaft must lead to their holding cells – ah, she had this all planned!"

"What are you going on about – all planned? Like this was some sort of idea of hers?"

Varon did not look away from the vertical shaft, trying to find some way of getting on to it. Perhaps she had kept a rope there, or chord, and had since raised it. Contemplatively, he turned back to Kay'l. Even if he did find a way into it, there was no way he could lift Kay'l up in time.

"Kay'l, you better get out of here," he said grimly. "Get back to the ship – your ship – and take them out of here. I'll follow you shortly."

"What? That's what I get for saving your hide?" Kay'l interjected. Finally one with his weapons again, the fear had seemingly flown out of him.

Varon looked solemn. "Look, there's nothing else you can do out here – I mean, it'll be hard enough for me to–"

The click of unlocking door mechanisms reverberated through Varon and Kay'l's mind at that instant. Kay'l's heart filled with dread as the remaining two doors to the practice chamber slid open, revealing rows of silver-plated Sith troopers lining their only means of exit.

Save that shaft, Varon noted.

Kay'l's blasters were up in a flash, wreaking havoc on the tightly-knit troopers as they moved into position. There was at least a score at either side of the room, too many for either of them to handle. Varon's lightsabre sparked to life in front of him, deflecting the first shots attentively. But soon there were too many for him to redirect at his enemies. Kay'l stood right behind Varon, judging almost on impulse that it was the safest (and only) place to be. Despite his mind being in frantic, utter disarray, Kay'l's fingers, at least, did not need prompting.

Varon stayed silent for a while, watching with hawk's eyes the scores of Sith troopers taking aim by the doors; as far as they could stay away from them, he mused. Then he remembered his weapon.

"Kay'l, do you have any grenades on you?" he asked briskly.

"No," he replied between rounds, "One right now would sure be handy."

"There's one at my belt, the left side. Take out the right column, and I'll deal with the rest."

Filled with a sudden sense of relief, Kay'l did not hesitate. Unstrapping the single grenade from Varon's belt, he ran to the right, into open air, armed, and threw the device as perfectly as he could between the lines of troopers, then ducked into a barrel roll with pistols in hand. The explosion tore through his rigid nerves like a heavy blow to the chest, leaving him uncoordinated for an instant as he recovered.

Wasting no breath, Varon burst into a headlong sprint, his lightsabre nimbly commanding the way towards the far door. The explosion shook the Sith's ranks across the entire room. Stretching out his mind, Varon closed his eyes and concentrated, his features grimly reflecting the resolute, shimmering starscape behind him. Nearly an entire rank were swept from their feet, hammering into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway behind them by one fickle sleight of hand. Then Varon swept in.

Blaster fire discharged, flew in all corners of the hall in chaos, then soon came to an abrupt halt. Heads were severed, torsos cloven and arms dismembered into a silver-specked mess on the floor of the entranceway; though not a trace of blood could be seen, the lone trademark that each and every wound had been rendered by a lightsabre. Instinctively, Varon darted out the doorway, meeting the ones he had thrown out there one moment earlier.

Strenuously rising to stand, Kay'l fought hard to keep up, both with Varon and against his waning consciousness. He dropped both pistols in their holsters, and found the Jedi outside, looking about both sides of the hallway with his lightsabre already replaced at his belt, as if he expected no more trouble. Kay'l looked at him sternly, gauging him before taking a deep breath of exhaustion.

"Don't tell me you still want to find that Twi'lek friend of yours," Kay'l prodded, watching Varon's unbending features with a certain weary wonder.

Varon seemed to pass aside the comment, pausing at length and still not paying the scoundrel any heed. "It's too late for that. She seems to be out of our reach for now, though don't think that will last for long." He paused again, as if suddenly pondering some newfound revelation. "I do not sense her presence..."

He turned to Kay'l, the folds of his dark robes twisting about his waist to a more attuned complexion. "This ship must be destroyed. Now, I'm sure there'll be enough explosives in the hangar bay to take this ship out of commission for at least while, but I'll head for the hyperdrive before making my way out of here. Get that ship of yours online and ready to fly, and I'll see you on board," he ordered, turning down the corridor and breaking into a full-out sprint.

Squinting through tired eyes, Kay'l saw Varon's robed form quickly disappear down the hall before he so much as had a chance to respond. "It's already pretty much prepped to go," he called back, though he knew it would be of no use. He was left with himself and the elevator terminals right behind him, and could only hope he'd seen the last of the Valin Harvester's crew men outside Zaithla'in's control room.

* * *

Kay'l managed to make two delicate strides into the anteceding hallway before the hangar port, gingerly avoiding the splayed limbs and other corpse remnants of Varon's handiwork, before his blaster pistols flew from their holsters with deftly, trepid reflexes, targeting sensors leveling on two hunched-over figures nearing a curve in the hallway ahead, one considerably smaller than the other. The lights followed both until they nearly passed out of sight; Kay'l's arms, head and steady stance froze, as a grim, rigid concentration permeated through his conscience.

"Freeze!" he yelled, almost screamed to Carella and Elianne's ears; duly, the two stopped in their tracks.

Slowly, Carella turned her upper body to look back, and spied the barrels of Kay'l's two antagonistic blasters leveled at her and Elianne's torsos. Darting open instinctively, her right hand slid free from her side. The scene had already woven its course inside her mind: two steps backwards, and the ring of unclipped metal as her lightsabre flew from her belt, and the meagre pilot would be little more than a flickering nuance forgotten amongst her carefree memory. The dark zest of a humming ion blade in her hands once more centred inside her brutal conscience as a thought that could not be cast aside. The energy, the power. It was hers: her right, _her legacy_, driven to a level where nothing could divert her mind from that fact.

Breaking out of her trance, Carella felt Elianne squeeze her arm. Her concentration nulled by the uncomfortable shock, her mind fell into a myriad of other conclusions and their subsequent frustrations, nearly forgetting Kay'l entirely. _Elianne, why are you doing this? Blast it!- why are you even here?_

Kay'l felt a familiar twitch behind his neck, and shuddered. Slowly, he dropped his weapons to his side, and gradually forced his mind to recognize the two. At length, he stepped forward.

Carella stepped back, away from him, and put a hand to her forehead. Elianne looked at Kay'l contemplatively, staring up at his smooth face, full of energy and mid-youthful complacency. Looking back down at her, Kay'l glanced at Carella, but otherwise paid her no heed.

"Well, where've y-" Kay'l started, but didn't finish. "Ah, it'll have to wait anyways. Let's get going."

The shy figure of Elianne flashed before Carella the moment she blinked her eyelids, feeling as light as a feather for an instant before glimpsing at Kay'l's resilient, but open features. He gestured for her to go forward. Elianne stared into Carella's marbled eyes anxiously, though patiently, as if waiting for something.

The fabric of Carella's undershirt rubbed against her triceps when she started walking, a strange feeling she only now noticed that prickled her vague conscience into coercive, painful musings. Absentmindedly, she watched the dead bodies littering the floor under her feet every now and then, and felt... alone. It was the first time such a thought had come to her for what seemed like an eternity. Where... how... in some way, mattered. But Carella could not answer these thoughts, and neither could her fond mutual allies. Zaithla'in was lost to her, and in whatever way such a bond had developed between them, so was the one person with the keys to her heart. It did not matter if it was better this way, or what malign influence those keys had been, only that they were lost. And now, she felt, her heart was lost in suit.

Kay'l punched in the entrance codes into the locking panel, bypassing an 'error code' the screen had read only a moment before: a certain trick he'd learned to keep host guards from wontingly 'browsing' his inventory. The smooth, thick durasteel airlock doors splintered open, letting the three move through into the first of two airlock doors as it sealed behind them. Pressure readjusted, albeit slightly, as the second door opened some few seconds later. Gesturing the others to a branch of seats, Kay'l confidently strode through the main room into the cockpit, taking a seat beside A5, still on standby, as he prepared the coordinates and system procedures. Resignedly, he took one look at his cup holder, then leaned back and reached for an overhead panel display.

"Tough crowd," he whispered to A5, assuming it still turned online. Despite his thrill in a few newfound, unlikely allies whom he'd never have wanted to meet the stares of only an hour ago, so little had been said between them that he began to have second thoughts. That girl was something else, he knew, but he could not help feeling left out of a loop somewhere.

Regardless, he thought, "This is gonna be a long trip, wherever we head."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic**_

_**Depth of One Soul**_

_**Chapter Three: Introduction**_

System shields powered up; in a massive systems check, electricity surged and rerouted itself throughout the circuits and relays of the Corellian VI, forcing Carella and Elianne to withdraw their eyes for a moment as the ceiling lamps glared to life. Darkness receded and retired from the mechanical commotion into the storage and engine compartments. Stark light illuminated the pores of Carella and Elianne's features, letting them both, for the first time when no sense of urgency hung upon them, perceive the other for whom they physically were.

Out of the corner of his eye, still working on reviving navigation and defence systems, Kay'l could only watch on as two flickering black silhouettes skimmed around the infrastructure of the command ship, the Valin Harvester, in smooth attack formation. A5, jittering forward as its sensors kicked into action, had seen it too.

"You have got to be kidding," he whispered dryly.

In the lone instant that followed, Kay'l barked a derogatory exclamation before the ship felt a sudden jerk to one side. The lights in the commons room swayed from side to side; Carella instinctively grabbed the armrests of her seat for balance, and Elianne thoughtfully did likewise.

Kay'l stormed out of the cockpit and up through the hallway in front of them, keeping his left hand on the wall for compensation. "I don't believe this," he muttered, befuddled though as resolute as he had been heading back to the ship. "Looks like we've got company – and we haven't even detached from this blasted Sith frigate yet."

For an instant, Carella's features lit up to speak, though she quickly realised arguing about it now was pointless.

"They don't even care about damaging their own airlock – or anything else from the look of it."

"Zaithla'in is not behind this," Carella mumbled blankly, her eyes staring down at the floor plating, as if absorbed in and not prepared to share her own inference, for the moment.

"Well, whoever it is, they're not coming on us slowly. These shields won't hold this kind of targeted firing for long. And neither will that ship's grav well if we go down..." Kay'l paused for a moment, searching for any other option whilst giving the two a chance for their own suggestions.

"Well, this ship's got one piloted turret. You two take the controls and do what you can. Once Varon gets back I'm wasting no time getting us out of here," Kay'l ordered, setting off across the main room and rushing up a set of stairs in a far corner, fixing a headset comm-link over his right ear with his free hand. Carella and Elianne looked about in dumbstruck wonder. The ship rocked about again, and Elianne looked at Carella somewhat accusingly, before the woman stood and made a rush for the cockpit. The child fearfully followed her.

Lifting his feet up over the last leg of a ladder, Kay'l stretched down onto the horizontal gunner's chair, glanced over the system schematics, flicked a few switches, and buckled in non-committally. Only seconds later, an ion bolt scored the Corellian VI's surface, denting the turret pane in front of him. Kay'l cursed, but he did not hesitate. Screen relays charged and loaded, green lights flared to life, indicating an array of subsystems had gone online, and the dark, mottled twin-handled joystick raised itself upon a panel in front of him. Running his hands through its edges, he felt the ambition, the beatifying surge of adrenaline rushing through him. The turret moved – uneasily at first, as the joystick clearly told him; but it was functional. Surrendering a warm grin across his revived features, Kay'l clutched the worn instrument in his hands, then spun the target scope round hard.

The fighters came in quickly. Compensating, then estimating, Kay'l watched the ship glide through open space as calmly as a gentle breeze. Bringing the turret round just as they made their run, Kay'l hunched over the scope and squeezed the trigger, launching two beams of ion energy towards one. The starfighter evaded just in time, sensing its danger before Kay'l had opened fire. Shaking his head in readiness, Kay'l focused on the next fighter's run, coming in from an angle too far away from the turret's current direction for him to compensate for in time, though he tried just the same. More ion blasts pounded the blue energy shield, rocking the ship around in their wake.

Sighing, Kay'l locked his eyes onto the next run, squinting at the tiny, glimmering starfighter with renewed intensity. He had only wait for it to come in range.

"Kay'l, is that you?" a voice fizzled softly over the headphone in his ear.

"Carella?" Kay'l answered hesitantly, taking a moment to recognize her. "W-...-what are the shield levels at?" he called. The fighter lithely flew by, his return fire discharging into open space.

A thin static returned to the intercomm a few seconds later. "... Looks... like it's at 46, if I'm reading it right," she replied. "Wait... no, is the blue ring the armour plating?... 28. I think. Is there anything we can do?"

Kay'l thought for a moment between firing rounds, intently watching both the fighters while he still kept an eye out on what little he could see of the airlock to his left. They didn't have much time left.

"Take a look at that panel just above your left leg – you're sitting in the pilot's chair, right? Well, go to it. There's a green button just to the upper left of its centre. Hit that. It should be powered up by now..." he trailed off.

"Okay," Carella mumbled helplessly.

Right below Kay'l's gun turret, a small, thin auto-targeting laser twisted and raced into action, opening fire in short, controlled bursts at the nearest enemy starfighter.

"That'll teach 'em," Kay'l thought aloud, bringing the turret to bear on the next one's attack run. This time, the ship dived in a straight, direct course, surprising him – likely targeting the cockpit, Kay'l guessed. One shot at that unprotected glass when the shields were down would take them out entirely; though that would mean the pilots must think the shields would soon be breached.

Regardless, Kay'l took his time, aimed, waited, and fired, preparing to veer alongside what he assumed would be the ship's flight path. The targeting sensors read a clear, direct shot; he felt some peace of mind pass through him as the turret fired two ion blasts right into the oncoming fighter.

In one sparkling explosion, the craft veered out of the fiery cloud with one wing sundered, imploding against the superstructure of the Valin Harvester just above Kay'l's lookout.

In the din of the explosion, Kay'l cursed aloud; the impact was more than strong enough to have rocked him off his feet if he'd been standing in the cockpit. The controls jerked away from him, out of his reach, and it was a few seconds before he grasped the joystick again and aimed at the remaining fighter. Many long moments passed before Kay'l heard anything from the intercomm again.

Carella looked up at Elianne, whose forehead was bleeding, though she'd managed to stand. A5 had been knocked to the ground beside her – fortunately it hadn't fallen on top of her. "You alright?" Carella asked gently.

Elianne timidly lifted herself up and into the co-pilot's chair, then nodded.

"Alright," Carella said soothingly. Her eyes regarded the young child with a look of compassion and elder pity, before the wake of the situation panged at her senses once more. Intermittently, she turned back to the panel readouts, and her face quickly changed complexion. "Kay'l... shield readout 9, declining quickly."

"Blasted targeting system!" Kay'l shouted, running through the next one's preferred trajectory in his head as he talked. "These _should_ have been replaced more than ten years ago. _And not that I'd think that's a problem_, well until now..."

A glare lit up the cockpit screen as the last fighter shattered into a billion shards; though as it had already taken some engine damage by the smaller laser, Kay'l could not take full credit for it. He sighed. "Great. Now all we have to do is find Varon."

Some static broke through the intercomm, as well as an astonished sigh. "Waiting won't be necessary," a low voice responded.

Kay'l's reflexes already clicked into action, unbuckling the belt and reclining the seat back to get out of it more easily. "Well... fantastic!" he said, continuing once he sat down in the pilot's chair beside them. "So, did you take down that hyperdrive?"

"What? You didn't hear the explosion?" Varon said, seeming surprised. "The entire engine room was obliterated, along with our Sith friend. The hangar's rigged for explosion. I doubt it'll destroy the ship entirely, but that's what we'll have to live with."

Carella grimly dropped her gaze, now standing beside Varon. "She is dead, then."

"Well, things here haven't been too quiet either. You sure that Jedi's dead?"

"Sith, you mean," Varon corrected, glancing at Carella, "though the Order believes she once may have been a Jedi. I met her just as I entered the engine room, and nothing could have escaped that blast."

Suddenly Carella jerked away, and stepped back. Varon sensed it almost before he could see it, and stretched a hand out to her. "There was nothing you could have done, Carella. The Force was an asset to her, not a calling, and you and I know she cared nothing for you. This is a loss you must overcome."

"No," Carella said simply, bitterly, backing away further until she turned and left the cockpit, likely to head to one of the dormitories. Meditatively, Varon sighed, then seemed to forget the issue, as if nothing of the matter remained unsaid.

Kay'l waited for a moment, passing by the silence as the ship disengaged from the Valin Harvester's air lock. "Do you honestly trust her?" he asked. Both had seemingly forgotten Elianne's presence, who still sat in the co-pilot's chair, as Varon stood behind them.

Varon's voice returned to how it had been when Kay'l had first met him, that of sounding completely unaffected by the entire situation around him. A moment passed before he answered him. "Her fate is yours, Kay'l.

"But what do we have here?" Varon asked genuinely, looking at Elianne now with his full attention. "And where have you been off to?"

Still looking very shy, with dried blood plastered on her forehead and tangled hair, Elianne smiled faintly.

"Come. I'll get that cut of yours looked at," Varon said with a comforting smile, holding her hand as she stood to walk out of the room beside him.

"Heh, if you can get anything out of her, I'll be doubly impressed," Kay'l murmured conveniently, carefully checking the coordinates and controls one last time. The scanners read three incoming short-range fighters swerving along the Harvester's prow, though Kay'l paid them little heed, knowing they'd be out of their reach before it mattered. As he straightened the ship, the hyperspace coordinates were almost calculated.

"Wait," he added. "Varon."

"_I'll tell you later_," the Jedi replied, his voice almost a whisper. Ringing so clearly, yet so softly that Kay'l thought it came from his own mind.

"W–here..." Kay'l stammered, one arm widely gesturing to the starscape before him. He turned his head back to see him.

"Anywhere," Varon smiled reassuringly, then turned to walk with Elianne to the med room, hand in hand.

_Some place with bustling activity_, his heart told him. Kay'l's mind wandered, but didn't fall too farfetched from his operations up front; the starfighters were coming in range. In a few heartbeats, the engines rared with electricity; the readout screens flickered with overcharged energy; and Kay'l punched in the coordinates. In one smooth, seamless, mindblowing transition, the faint stars froze in time, and nearby Baranor and Corun waved their fond farewell, blitzing into the space behind before a trail of blue-white energy subdued the ship, and the Corellian VI was nowhere to be found.

Kay'l watched the controls display for an hour longer, slouched in the back of the pilot's seat, before his eyes finally carried a weight of their own, calling him to sleep.

"Hold the fort, kid," he mumbled, patting A5's smooth armour plating before wearily making his way down the small corridor into the main room. The droid whistled a very faint reply, engaging itself out of standby.

Looking about, Kay'l saw the main room was empty, completely devoid of any sign of company. The humming engines purred too loudly for him to hear any talking, so he walked over towards the starboard dormitory at his left, keeping a hand on the wall as he checked the refreshments distiller. Grabbing a mug, Kay'l filled it with cold water, and took a sip; it bore a hint of carbonate, and his lips cringed slightly, as he continued walking.

Rounding the bend, Kay'l saw Carella and Elianne in adjoining beds, sitting down, talking to each other. Elianne was looking the other way, but Carella's eyes caught Kay'l immediately; soon enough Elianne stopped talking, and caught him as well.

Feeling as if someone had put him under a spotlight, Kay'l shyly kept his casual persona, and called, "You two alright?"

Carella looked up at him, a private, demeaningly wounded tone about her features. "Yes. We're fine."

Kay'l took another sip of his water with a roguish, unfazed look about him. "Alright. Well, you just tell me and I'll get something for you," he continued. "It'll be a long trip... just to tell you..."

"Kay'l," Carella said. "Could you leave. Please?"

Berating himself in his mind, Kay'l immediately felt wounded. He knew she could not possibly have any clue of what he was thinking. Truth enough, his eyes had scarcely left Elianne; and his mind, partly in embarrassment, still aimlessly sought for a reason to stay by the girl. He thanked his own consciousness for being so tired this night, for at least she, _they_, would not notice his response as anything more significant than mere weariness. Slowly, he brought his feet backwards, turning the other way with incredulous strain. Elianne disappeared from him, her face full of life, innocence, childhood mystery. But it was something else – at least for Kay'l, as he well knew. No regular child had – could have – touched him that way before; and in a way it frightened him, just as much as it bedazzled the reach of his imagination.

"Star giants, inter-galactic planetary webways, and the endearing unknown," Kay'l mouthed, though he couldn't tell if his own ears had heard it under his breath or not. Sauntering across the ship, he reached the portside dorm moments later, his mind wavering until his eyes noticed Varon lying down in the furthest bed from the entrance.

In a familiar way, both immediately seemed to accept the other's presence without directly looking at each other; Kay'l sat down on a bed one space away from the Jedi, whose eyes were open, and blankly looking between the ceiling and wall to his left. Sighing, Kay'l ungraciously laid himself down and relaxed, then sat up again after a short while, his eyes imparting his deep thoughtfulness to the cold, metal floor.

"So, where did you get this ship, anyways?" Varon asked helpfully, breaking the obvious shroud about Kay'l's heart.

Kay'l looked up, raising his chin out of his fingers, faintly grinning. "X-4100 Star Cruiser Transport/Rapid Assault Unit, the latest technology out of Corellia for the Republic dominion. 5000 tons, 60 feet, and room for 16 passengers... and 3 turrets if I ever get the credits. This baby's packed with potential as essentially a portable command bridge in any star fleet, and there's only been six ever made, all Republic design." Kay'l sighed, resting his arms on the back of his neck. "Oh, she's not the best you could ever hope for – mostly old parts that need changing, or needed to a few decades ago. A rare, expensive antique, really. But in the right mechanic's hands, she's a force to be reckoned with."

"I take it you didn't find this on the black market, then?" Varon added slyly.

"Oh, it's still charted as owned by the Republic right now," Kay'l admitted, just before he had considered that that detail _might_ work against him in the wrong ears. "She fought in one of the Republic's many wars not too long ago, like the rest of these X-4100 ships. There's not too many of them left, I've heard, though I know of at least two more the Republic holds on Coruscant or some other Core World as some kind of reserve escort. This babe was brutally hit in the war, I think in some skirmish off an asteroid field. When no one replied back on the intercomm for long enough, it was presumed destroyed. Hey, it took a lot of spare parts and weapons changes to rework this beauty up again, but I managed it."

"You were one of the original crew with the Republic?"

"I was one of the young engineers," Kay'l said, nodding, "or pilots, or something like that. The other men who came out of it just left me with the ship as salvage – and considering they were essentially given a free ticket out of the Republic with no past record, they had good reason to get away from this. But I did it: I hid this thing well enough from the most prying of eyes, and by the time I finished it, pretty much everything but the shields were replaced or rewired. Man, if these shields hadn't been intact, I probably would have left her for scrap anyways. They pretty much alone saved our hides getting out of here... or leastways a ton of ship repairs."

Varon left a pause before he continued. "And what does the Republic know?"

Kay'l's features quickly returned to their weary, non-committal demeanour, as they had been moments ago. "I... I suppose they've given up the hunt long ago. Records this far out from the Core Worlds never make it into Republic hands – leastways ones that would recognize an old signature. There's a reason I've kept outside of Republic territory for a while, of course... though I suppose you want me to head back there soon."

Nodding in contemplation, though not at Kay'l's question, Varon clasped his hands and sat up. He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and slowly relaxed.

Kay'l's past enthusiasm quickly fled him, soon to be replaced by his returning, brooding thoughts. "So, what do you think of the girl?" he asked.

"Elianne?" Varon said passively. "Strong, good-minded, young girl. I'm afraid of what influences this ship will have on her, but she does deserve her place here."

"You mean Carella?"

"No, not particularly." Varon said with a smile, ruffling the folds of his robes. "I'm afraid what influences the _girl_ will have on Carella, actually."

Kay'l turned his head away contemplatively, too tired to follow Varon. "You knew her once?" he asked.

"I knew she was here. Her records were in an academy I chanced upon before hearing of that equipment transaction on Baranor." Varon sighed. "She has a good heart, and I hope that will be enough for the rest to come."

"What rest to come?" Kay'l asked, though he didn't expect Varon to reply very quickly.

Suddenly Varon turned to him, and looked Kay'l's eyes measuredly. "You've seen her past, haven't you?" he asked.

Kay'l took a moment to discern Varon's meaning. "Yes."

"Then you know why I wanted to find her," Varon answered him.

"But... but what does she actually do?"

Varon's tone became gentler and more subdued. "She has a talent for the Force that has never been seen in anyone, young and old. And it goes far beyond whatever communication you had with her today. I..." He paused. "I don't know what she is capable of, but with strong training, her powers could quite truly be limitless."

"What do you mean?" Kay'l asked.

"I cannot tell you." Varon sighed, slowly lying back down. "But you have been touched by her. Of all the gifts I have ever seen, you should cherish this greatly... treasure this... greatly."

Moments later, when only silence and the soft hum of the hyperdrive rippled through his senses, Kay'l looked down again to the floor in thought. What those half-truthful answers could have meant felt too rhetorical to understand, at least tonight. He knew there was nothing he could do; and slowly, eventually, he lay back down again, put his hands behind his neck, and sighed. And soon enough, his eyes fell, his mind wandered, and his heart dreamed of a lost mind.

What came, felt soft, yet rigid; a veil covered his fingertips. The stars flew by. Galaxies waned. Structure mounted, inflated, reproduced. The insides of the ship ran warily through his mind... feeling the room: the other dorm. Where Elianne was lodged. Her eyes. Cool, pallid, serene. Like distant lightning.

Varon stood before him. Dark robes unfolded, behind him, the hilt of his lightsabre raised; though no blade poured forth. Carella, the opposite side, facing his direction of vision, her outfit that of a calmed, laid-back smuggler, silver breastplate, durable outwear. The stars still flew by, darkness in sight... Locked in sight, scope. True dreams wavered before, wearing out with the waxing time. Eyes half-open; closed; blinded. Future, necessary. The past hid beyond memory. Stars. Planet, with three moons revolving around it. A fourth barely visible.

A chambre. Metal ironworks ramp. Steam rose, gasses, pouring from under his feet. Disappeared. Varon, Carella, Elianne... disappeared. Industry: computers, robots, droids, servants, painful, will-ridden, mindless slaves.

Clear, precise, peacefully tranquil, a mind-blowing expanse of stars, galaxies and furnaced gas giants cast a preternatural aura upon sentience, caressing the strands and fibres well veiled beneath the mottled, heavy black robes of a silhouette. The starscape could often have dazzling, befuddling affects upon the home-weary, despite however many years of experience one bore in its navigation. No one would ever say why the ever-changing depths of space could hold one so captivated; for they would merely bid another to experience it for oneself. One, here, pondered long and hard on this interpretation.

But clouds soon fizzled away clarity, giving way to...

An eye blinked open. What was he to make of this? The recognition of a glimpse at the ceiling had already clarified his thoughts between his truths and his dreams. But why? What became of it?

Suddenly Kay'l felt his eyes. And shoulders. They were still tired, it seemed. Not unnatural for space travel, of course, as one rarely had the comfort of a soft, welcoming bed that wasn't tossing about; but his mind couldn't get off the subject. Stark, yet stagnant, the dream remained in his mind, fixated there, as if taunting him to travel its depthful revelation for a while. But he couldn't, he mused. Where, how... he had forgotten. Why, he had forgotten too, if ever he had known. What memory he had left felt like a cancer inside his memory, and it so cooly tempted him to follow its transparent footsteps, into... where, he didn't know... His mind hurt. His head, too, swayed and rocked in the shadowy corner of his bed, turned away from the lights in the room, to better reflect on his fresh memory.

Was it a memory? A dream, perhaps. It didn't sound, or feel, like the vision he shared with Elianne. Grassy fields, he remembered. Something didn't seem right – nothing had felt right since he had taken up the Harvester commander's offer to meet Varon as an escort. What followed through his mind, enrapturing his emotions, aspects and anxieties into one figure of awe, did not coalesce, logically. But he still tried to understand, to recognise and piece together the fragments he could into an iconic mural with which to base his ideas, conclusions, and inferences thereof, upon.

"You alright?"

It came from behind him; instantly, Kay'l's thoughts turned to Carella, slowly recognizing the voice as hers. Reluctantly, he rolled around to face her, thin crinkles covering his weary, disheveled cheek bones, as his eyes strained to see her clearly against the bright lights on the ceiling behind her. Gradually, his lips loosened and twitched slightly, Carella's only indication he seemed to be responding.

"Here, I brought you something to drink," she said hesitantly, extending a plate between her hands, holding one of Kay'l's steel mugs.

Kay'l still couldn't see what emotion was etched on Carella's face for this kind act even if he wanted to, though he heard her well enough and resentfully sat up. Taking the mug with both hands, he didn't nod his thanks until he had taken a first sip... which turned out to be a bad idea. When a droid couldn't get ingredients right, a woman who didn't know a thing about the qualities of black beans or the reasons behind its indulgence was far from a better option. His lips cringed, though he didn't doubt she'd gullibly take that as a compliment. "Thank you," he rasped, coughing.

Carella nodded, and might have smiled from the way Kay'l was looking at her. Carefully, she put the plate on the bed beside him, and stayed in front of Kay'l for a few minutes, somewhat blankly.

"Varon's been at the controls since I got up," she said, "but he told me to give you this. It's something that little droid of yours seemed to spend some time making while the rest of us were awake."

"Well, that explains the bad taste," Kay'l lied, flashing Carella a smile.

Carella looked unsure of his meaning, but knew it was a compliment all the same. Stepping back a few paces, she leaned against the wall in front of him.

"So..." Kay'l managed after drinking most of the brew in half-disgusted, tribulating torment. "What exactly were you and Elianne talking about last night?"

Carella's face suddenly soothed, and she sighed. "Oh, nothing important. I'm... I'm sorry I had to kick you out there; it's just, you were kind of disturbing the 'moment,' you know?"

"That's... alright, I guess," Kay'l said non-commitally. What she was talking about he didn't try to understand. "But since when did my ship's dormitories become strictly male-female? I mean – I wasn't out on the controls that long for you three to just come to an arrangement."

Carella grinned, letting out a giggle. "Is there a rule we don't know about? Nothing was said against it, Kay'l... – And I presume you'd have had it differently, wouldn't you?"

"Well, perhaps," Kay'l admitted, dropping his gaze as he realized his own trap. "My bed _is_ on the other side," he hinted.

"Nothing's being planned behind your back, if that's what you're after," Carella stated. "Where exactly are we going, anyway?"

"That depends on what Varon's been doing at the controls, I guess," Kay'l said, sighing. Putting the mug on the tray, he lifted himself up using both hands and stretched.

"Alright," Carella said shyly, reaching out to get the tray again; but Kay'l stopped her.

"No, it's alright. I'll get it, thanks."

Slowly, Kay'l followed Carella into the main room, where Elianne was sitting sheepishly. Looking around, Kay'l put the tray down and went over to the cockpit, stopping at shoulder's length behind the pilot's chair.

"And what are you doing?" he asked demeaningly. A5 whistled hesitantly beside him.

"I trust you've slept well?" Varon asked, spinning the chair around to face him, a sincere smile across his lips.

Kay'l thought for a moment. That dream, and dealing with Carella so early in his 'spacial' morning, was hard to rate. "Where are we headed now, then?"

Varon looked back at the coordinates as Carella walked in behind Kay'l. "That's what I hoped you'd tell me. I've been there before, though why do you choose to go there?" he wondered, daring a guess. "Its neutrality?"

Kay'l stood casually, curious of Varon's meaning. "What? Manaan?"

"-Manaan?" Carella asked, coming to stand beside him.

"It's an aquatic world, covered by oceans. The Selkath keep it as a neutral world between Sith and Republic interactions, hoping to benefit in the profits of its kolto industry to both sides," Varon explained. "There's only one city above the waters, so I presume that's where we're headed."

"Look," Kay'l said, putting a hand on the back of Varon's chair, "I know a high-up weapons merchant who usually deals at that station. And not to be mean to you guys, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done on this ship before I'm going to take her to whatever places that I don't want to go."

"What's his name?" Varon asked.

"Cassus Fett."

"A high up bounty hunter," Carella added, her eyes widening into a surprised glare. "Even I've heard of him, and he means business. And you're one of his partners? I'm impressed."

"Well, strictly trading partners," Kay'l explained. "I've never seen him do any of those legendary exploits you've probably heard of, or even how good he is with a gun. He's really a soft guy when you get to know him," he added, smiling.

"I hope that's good news, then," Varon said. "You're taking a risk in coming to him now, if that Sith syndicate of ours has sent word of anything yet. Your name may fetch a high bounty before this is over, Kay'l."

Carella shook her head slowly. "If Zaithla'in is truly dead, I doubt many will weep for her loss. She had no superior, as far as I know."

"That would be good," Varon agreed, "but I wouldn't count on it. Sith organization is distant, yes, but not immaterial. That deal she was working with included the Exchange, and if they didn't get their half of the bargain... we'll have to stay away from most busy trade worlds for the time being."

"Agreed," Carella said, nodding.

"Well, then, where exactly is it that you want us to go?" Kay'l said, raising the question he'd been longing to ask for a while now. Since then it hadn't ever been clear _why_ they needed to go anywhere at all, so long as they had finally lost the Sith near Corun and weren't being looked for. Or why they even needed to stay together, for that matter.

"You want the truth, don't you?" Varon's face was clouded with an aura of vacuity, and he looked away contemplatively, bringing a hand to his chin thoughtfully as he leaned back on the chair. "Our lives are on the line. The next soul who discovers our presence as the murderers of a Sith Lord will not hesitate to take the renown of becoming our untimely assassin. You may think this an inconceivable notion, for no one knows of us, except by your vicinity to the explosion as per the Exchange's records and Carella's service (and presumed death) onboard that ship. But this is not an ordinary matter, or possible assassin, who would be hunting us: we would be facing either another Sith Lord, or aspiring servant of the dark side of the Force. Killing them will not be easy. And if this happens, we would be massacred should we part ways, and fight him alone."

"Well, that's nice to hear," Kay'l said, beginning to sound infuriated. "So you mean to say I've got an entire crew walking the decks of _my_ ship to save _my_ hide when I have nothing to do with this?"

"_Captain_, it's obvious we don't see eye to eye. You mean to seek an end to things, and I respect that. But there are greater powers involved here than you know."

"You ask me to destroy myself – is that it? Running, hiding – we wouldn't be living – we'd be surviving – and _barely_, at that."

"Then are you a survivor?" Varon cornered. He paused. "Look. We'll reach the Pyrshak system in three days and be at Manaan soon after. Until then, I suggest you all start your training. There's much to discover in our time here, and much more if we decide to stay together later on. But also much danger. You will all need to learn the ways of the Jedi, as... _unfortunate_ as that may seem."

A5-T171 let out a draining whistle in the silence that followed.

"But... how?!" Kay'l said, staggered.

Rising to a stand, Varon put a hand on Kay'l's shoulder. "Relax...

"You can feel it within you, something inside of you, can you not?"

Kay'l cocked one eyebrow.

"You have never considered it, sure; but yet you have always known."

Again, the pilot's gut instinct desired, sought a way to refute what he heard. Kay'l had felt it, indeed, though not before a few short days ago, and one long, dreaded sleep.

"Follow me, Kay'l. If you can manage it (which you have proven to me already), then I most certainly can train you. A power of unimaginable strength rests dormant, deep inside all of us. None of us can feel it, like you might vainly try to right now, as I once did before you. Free your mind; you have only to hone your grasp, and it will come to you in time."

Kay'l stood there, beside Carella and Varon, in awestruck wonder, perceiving Varon with every move, every meticulous detail woven about him and his actions. "Well, this is... this is all highly enlightening, but... since _when_ did you think you could train me? Why do you want to become my master? – I mean, is that your way of making amends – commandeering my ship after murdering my employer and butchering her command ship's entire crew? I'm a good fighter, sure – great if you say so – but if you think you can come in and just generally '_toy_' round with my entire life from this instant... what in blasted hellfire gives the idea I should just come along and follow you?"

Varon's features no longer took on that condescending look of calm and patient scholasticism, yet again, they did not show frustration or anxiety.

"Calm your mind," he said softly. "Awaken those setting thoughts within your memory. Now, soothe your arms. Feel that aura around you."

Between anger and frustration, the moment Kay'l closed his eyes to blink, he felt it. The anger rose inside of him; his diaphragm compressed to speak, retaliate what Varon had said. But nothing came. The words did not register, his mind did not concentrate, and he found himself, against all supplications, holding his breath.

Carella's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets.

"Now open your thoughts. Feel it; and come with me," Varon began, passing through the hallway with a bemused smuggler in tow, as Carella stared at Elianne in disbelief.


End file.
